Appendix A: Grace Unlooked-For

When word came that the Elven-King's son sought folk of the Greenwood to join him in the White City of Minas Anor, the first to step forward was Losfaron, Captain of the Guard. He had done so in eagerness, for it was a unique and exciting opportunity to behold a city of Men. More still, he wished to look upon King Elessar in his triumph, for he had known him in his long labours before. No monarch could have done more to earn his throne, nor to warrant the love and admiration of his people.

Sitting astride Moroch with the great walls of the city before him, Losfaron repented of his hastiness. The journey had passed in pleasurable days and peaceable nights, the convoy of fair folk making steady progress through lands left empty by the retreat of the Enemy's thralls in the wake of his defeat. There had been nothing to regret then, save perhaps that his duty to secure the home front had kept him from the great battle that King Thranduil had waged against the monstrous inhabitants of Dol Guldur. Now, however, as he drew near the great gates where scaffolding had been erected that dwarven stonemasons might ply their arts, Losfaron felt a cold knot in the pit of his stomach.

He had parted from Aragorn son of Arathorn on the best of terms, speaking as one soldier to another about the care of a most unpleasant captive. On that occasion Losfaron had given the Ranger who now was King the use of Moroch's steadfast legs on his journey to Imladris. He had been most graciously and earnestly thanked, and the two Captains had taken their leave in camaraderie and shared respect. When Moroch had returned to him in the company of the servants of Elrond Half-Elven, she had borne with her a letter from Lord Aragorn. It gave a warm account of the mare's deportment on the trail and her essential contributions to his safe crossing of the mountains. All this had left Losfaron in perfect amity with he who ruled this great stone city, and it should have been a joyous thing to see Elessar in his splendour.

Yet all that was now in doubt in Losfaron's mind. However gracious the King, and whatever the regard that had been between them before, there was something more to consider now. For Losfaron had betrayed his word and the charge laid upon him on their parting. He had vowed to safeguard the prisoner entrusted to him, to treat him kindly but with ceaseless vigilance, and in the end he had failed. Despite his care and his noblest intentions, the creature called Gollum had escaped.

It had taken many months for the stern security practices of the Guard to lapse. Losfaron had done his utmost to uphold each condition of the pact made long before the pitiful thing's capture. He had kept two guards upon the cell at all times, and enforced the measure of ensuring neither the cell door nor that of the guard room was open at the same time as the other. And he had repeatedly reminded himself and those beneath his command that the tiny, withered captive was far more sly and far more dangerous than his appearance would suggest. Yet he and all the others, including Legolas the King's son himself, had also wished to obey the decree Mithrandir had given: to hope for Gollum's healing and to treat him gently.

It had been at the end of the winter – milder than the one that had gone before, but still dreary enough – that they had ventured at last to take Gollum from his cell. Left in the gloom it seemed there would never be a chance of any cure, for it was too easy for the creature to lapse into his black mutterings and evil thoughts. So on one fair spring evening, Losfaron and the King's son, and a trusted guard had brought him forth from the Elvenking's gates. They had let him walk among them, untethered but at every moment surrounded, and he had seemed to enjoy the diversion. For days afterwards he was more genial with his guards and seemed to take more pleasure in his meals. The result had been both surprising and encouraging.

So when the weather was fair, an escort would go out with Gollum into the forest. He was obedient and well-behaved, going where he was told and coming when he was commanded. He took to a particular tree, tall and broad-boughed, that stood apart in a clearing of its own. They would allow him to climb it, and always he would come down again when he was told to do so. Again and again such outings went without incident, and all of them – Legolas and Losfaron as much as any beneath their command – grew to believe that Gandalf's words were true: that Gollum was indeed beginning to be rid of the malice and wickedness he had harboured so long.

How Losfaron now wished that he had heeded more closely the words of Aragorn as well as those of the wizard! For on one moonless night, when he was himself not on active duty, Gollum had clambered up his tree and refused to come down again. Upon that night Losfaron had been resting in his chamber when the alarm was raised: unlooked-for a band of orcs had come upon the King's lands. He had mustered his soldiers to arms and led the charge of swordsmen while the King's son had command of the archers. The Elves were outnumbered and taken unawares, but the orcs were poorly disciplined and unaccustomed to the terrain. They had at last been driven back, after a long and bloody night. Then it had come time for the folk of Thranduil to take stock of their losses.

A few had been slain and many wounded in repelling the onslaught. Losfaron himself had been nicked by the blade of a falling foe, though he took no grievous hurt. But the worst loss of all was found at the foot of the lonely pine. All Gollum's guard had been cut down or captured, and the wretch himself was gone. The efforts of the woodland hunters had availed but little: they found his tracks among those of the retreating orcs, but these swiftly led south towards the dread fortress of Dol Guldur and the trail was lost.

Before the fall of the Enemy, those lands had been impassible and far too deadly to hazard even for the sake of honouring a promise. Losfaron and his search party had ventured further than any other, but in the end they too had been forced to turn back. Further loss of life would have weighed upon the Captain's conscience still more than his failure. There had been no choice.

To Legolas had fallen the grim duty of travelling to Rivendell with news of Gollum's escape. When Noldorin riders had come instead of the returning emissary, there had been whispers that the tidings had not been received with grace – of old the Noldor had thought little of the Silvan peoples, and old bitterness lingered yet in some hearts. Losfaron had yet been in the King's confidence, for his valour and strategy in the battle had been beyond reproach and the nature of the escape was such that it could not well have been foreseen. So he had swiftly learned that Thranduil's son had departed Rivendell on some errand of great import and secrecy, in the company of Mithrandir and Lord Aragorn and a number of others unnamed by the messengers.

No more had the folk of Mirkwood learned of the fate of the King's son for many months. Even at the height of the assaults upon their borders and the battles around Dol Guldur they had known nothing of his errand or what might have befallen him. Some despaired of his return, but Thranduil never did. He believed to the last that his son would come through the darkness unscathed.

And so it had proved. News had come first out of Lórien from the Lady Galadriel herself, and then from the South: the Enemy was cast down and his power utterly unmade. The world was free of the Shadow, and Elendil's Heir had returned to take the throne of Gondor and the kingship of the fractured North. With all the rest Losfaron had rejoiced in the downfall of Sauron, but he more than most had cherished word of Aragorn's ascension.

Now, riding through the winding streets that made their way through many gates to the Citadel of Minas Anor, Losfaron was sick with dread. At the head of the procession rode Legolas, who had come out to greet his people. He was bringing them now before the King, and Losfaron would have to face at last the noble and courageous man whom he had so grievously failed.

Just below the Seventh Gate the travellers halted. Here grooms and stable-boys waited to take the horses. Losfaron dismounted, but did not yield Moroch's reins nor permit anyone to untie the tether affixed to her saddle. Beside her mother stood a gawky yearling, dark and delicate of bone and yet unnamed. There had been no question of separating Moroch from her filly, and only the greatest need would have led Losfaron to leave his beloved steed behind while he embarked upon a mission that was like to last for years. The pace of the journey had not been too much for the youngling, and she nuzzled now against her mother's flank. Moroch nickered lovingly and turned so that their noses might meet.

Legolas had come back from the head of the column, a puzzled frown upon his fair face. 'Why do you hesitate, Captain?' he asked. 'The horse-wardens of Gondor are skilled, and there are those among their number who have come to us from Rohan where reigns Éomer King, with whom I stood in battle. There are no better guardians for your fair one and her foal: you need not fear.'

'All the same, I shall see them stabled myself,' said Losfaron. The hope he had held in his heart when first he decided to come, yearling and all, now seemed impossible. He did not know how he might look King Elessar in the eyes, much less speak to him of matters that should be between friends. 'Moroch trusts me as she trusts no other: it is best that I tend to her little one.'

Legolas shook his head, bewildered. 'Surely you can see that she understands,' he said. 'I have never known Moroch to refuse you anything. Tales are still told of how you coaxed her to carry the wretch Gollum when first he was brought to our halls.'

There was commotion all around them. Folk of the Sixth Level had drawn near to look upon the visitors, still curious about Elvenkind despite the hosts that had come in the company of the daughter of Elrond, now their Queen. The grooms were leading the horses, while many of the Wood-Elves laughed and chattered amongst themselves. Further ahead, by the gate itself, the sable-clad Guards were conferring hurriedly. Losfaron scarcely comprehended any of this, for his own discomfort was too great.

'What is it?' asked Legolas, drawing nearer and lowering his voice as one might when speaking to a friend in great pain. 'What ails you, Losfaron? You blench as if with fear.'

Losfaron swallowed, berating himself. A thousand years he had walked the earth, and still he could not speak the truths that weighed upon his heart. He shook his head, wordless, and now Moroch was turning to him instead of the filly. She whinnied a low question, wondering what was amiss with her master. Losfaron stroked her nose and bowed his head to it as he hushed her. The foal, overwhelmed by the noise and disorder, tucked her head into the shelter of her mother's forelegs, and Losfaron reached to comfort her as well.

Someone had drawn Legolas's attention, and he strode off distractedly. Losfaron began to look about for some approachable-looking Man who might show him where his horses might lodge. Before he could hail one, however, the gates to the Seventh Level swung inward and the street fell silent.

There were two Guards upon the other side, clad in black mail and broidered surcotes and with lofty helms upon their heads. It was they who had opened the doors, and between them stood the one for whom they had done so. Very tall was he, clad in cloth of richest blue with a diadem upon his brow bright as the Morning Star. His was a visage of dignity and majesty that cast those who beheld him into quiet awe, but for all the fine clothes and the kingly stance Losfaron knew him. He had seen that same dignity in an emaciated body clad in filthy tatters and limping upon a twisted ankle, the soles of his boots held to his feet with soiled rags. It was Aragorn son of Arathorn, whose trust he had betrayed.

The King came forward, a welcoming smile upon his face. The grim lines at mouth and brow were erased by mirth, and about him was no shadow of the careworn and exhausted Man Losfaron had seen upon their last meeting. The starveling hollows that had been gouged at cheeks and temples even after many days' rest in Thranduil's caverns were long forgotten. This was a man of strength unrivalled, his nobility and lineage unmasked before all the world. At the sight of him, Losfaron's last shreds of courage failed him. How could he present himself before this stern and joyous Númenorean King, whose reforged blade had carved out victory against the Shadow that had gone undefeated for thousands of years, when both of them knew how he had failed?

'Welcome!' the King said, and though he spoke with ease and measured joy all heard him. He spoke in the Elven tongue, with the grace of one born to it – as indeed he had been. His smile was warm and he held out his hands in greeting. 'Welcome, folk of the Greenwood! You have travelled far to adorn this city with your presence, and on behalf of her people I thank you. Lodgings have been prepared for you, but first I would implore you to dine at my table as my most honoured guests. The Queen of Arnor and Gondor, the Reunited Kingdom, awaits you within. Please, come!'

Legolas stepped forward first, clasping hands with Elessar that they might exchange quiet words. Then he beckoned to his folk, and they passed in twos and threes. Each made his or her courtesy to the King, murmuring quiet words of thanks and praise. To each the King spoke in turn, all the while radiant with regal merriment. The stable-hands continued about their work, though none tried to draw near Losfaron again. All at once he was left alone, with only the Guards in their black raiment, Legolas his lord, and the King himself.

He turned his keen eyes upon Losfaron, his smile unwavering. In those eyes Losfaron saw the same piercing intelligence, the insight and the wisdom that had won his respect for the wayworn Chieftain of the Dúnedain. He had first been rather taken aback by the Ranger's insistence upon measuring the fastness of the cell set aside for his quarry. Lord Aragorn's systematic efforts had impressed a skeptical Captain, and his manner had won Losfaron's friendship. This should have been a joyous moment, but it was not.

King Elessar spoke softly to Legolas, gesturing him in through the gates. Legolas nodded and went, and at a quiet word from their liege-lord the guards drew closed the great portal. To Losfaron's surprise and dismay, the King stepped not back but forward, through the gates and into the street to be shut out with the reticent guest.

Forward he came, moving with purpose and grace. Having torn from his gaze when he spoke to Legolas, Losfaron dared not meet his eyes again. He fixed them instead upon the hem of the King's raiment, couched thick with threads of silver and gold. Such skill was wrought in that embroidery that it could only be the work of Elven hands, and Losfaron remembered with a wistful flash of amusement the ornate tunic Thranduil's tailor had made to replace the Ranger's desperately worn rags. The memory only drove home his dismal position.

'Captain Losfaron, of the Elven-King's guard,' said Elessar, confidence and welcome in his voice.

Losfaron heard only accusation. He dropped to one knee on the cobbles, letting Moroch's lines run through his fingers. She had recognized the Man, and for once in her life of perfect obedience disobeyed her master's will. She stepped forward, foreleg brushing the edge of Losfaron's cloak, and rubbed her nose against the King's shoulder.

'Well met, fair one,' said Elessar, and there was a jingle of bridle bells as he scratched the crest of Moroch's brow. 'But what is amiss with your good Captain?'

'Lord King…' Losfaron began. His voice was hoarse and not at all the melodious tone that befitted one of the Firstborn. 'Sire…'

Firm hands took his shoulders and raised him up. 'You are neither subject nor supplicant, my friend,' the King said. 'It is not fit that you should kneel before me.'

Losfaron raised his eyes at last, and saw both kindness and understanding upon the noble face. 'King Elessar…' he mumbled.

'Once you called me by my right name, Captain,' said the King, eyes sparkling in play. 'Have I lost that honour in your eyes?'

'No, my Lord!' cried Losfaron, dismayed to be thus mistaken. 'No! It is I who am dishonoured, having failed in the charge I swore to undertake. After all that was done, and all that you suffered in the finding of the wretch, I permitted Gollum to escape my custody. I am foresworn, and I am unworthy of the trust you placed in me.'

Elessar had listened serenely to all this. Now he nodded his head slowly. 'I see,' he murmured, his eyes clouding briefly as if in grave thought. 'That is what weighs upon your heart.' Then he smiled again, and reached to gather Moroch's loosed lines. 'Walk with me, Losfaron, and speak my name. We shall find some place fitting for these two to abide. I did not know Moroch was delivered of a foal.'

This mention of his dear one stirred in Losfaron a small burst of pride that was most welcome in his moment of great shame. It permitted him to find the courage to do as he had been told. 'She has, Aragorn: a year since. So glad and careful a mother I have never seen.'

'I well believe it,' said Aragorn, guiding the mare down a cobbled side street that curled parallel to the wall of the Seventh Level. 'She tried herself at mothering me from time to time.'

Losfaron laughed, and the spell of rank and triumph was broken. They were again what they once had been: two soldiers striding side by side. Instead of a rope tether bund to his wrist, the Dúnadan held Moroch's lines; and he was hale and unharmed. Those were the most significant of the differences between present and past.

'I have received the same treatment, I confess,' Losfaron said. 'She is glad now to have a more fitting recipient for her care.'

Aragorn nodded and spoke to Moroch. 'Your daughter is beautiful, even as her dam.' To Losfaron he said; 'I dared to hope that you might be among the folk to answer the summons. I did not know if you have any love of planting or of tending young trees, but even so peaceable an expedition needs warriors in its number with the remnants of Mordor at large.'

'We were unharried, and I am thankful,' said Losfaron. 'Has there been trouble, then?'

'Some,' agreed the King. 'Chiefly in Ithilien on Anduin's far bank, for there are those among the warlords of Rhûn who dispute my claim upon those lands and all that rests within the bounds of what was once Sauron's dominion. For now there is naught to be done but to repel their advances and offer clemency to all who cast down their arms. I have fared far better with Mordor's southerly tributaries.'

Losfaron knew little of the nations of Men, and still less about Mordor and its tributaries, but he had a commander's keen interest in securing unstable borders. 'Why is that?' he asked.

They had reached a long building of stone, lower than those around it and fitted with broad stable doors. One of these Aragorn opened, that he might lead Moroch and the filly into a well-kept stable with wide stalls and sweet-smelling straw. Other horses were housed here, Losfaron saw. All were splendid beasts, though of different lineages. There was a grey palfrey with the blood of Lórien in her slender bones and lofty brow. Beside her was stabled a war-horse, taller than any Losfaron had seen before. The stallion's hair was coarse and thick, and its withers broad with enduring strength. There was a white horse of some stock he did not recognize: compact and fleet-looking. And there were others, each one carefully tended.

'The peoples of Harad, which lies to the South, were for the most part enslaved by the Enemy,' said Aragorn. He raised the bar of the largest stall and reached to unbuckle Moroch's bridle. Because of the need to secure the yearling, Losfaron had not ridden her in the fashion of his people but with full tack. For long journeys it had its advantages. He now moved to loosen her girth while the King went on. 'Their kings and chieftains Sauron's servants murdered; their rites and rituals of faith he suppressed; and their old ways he tried to obliterate. Harad groaned beneath the yoke of Mordor, and was calloused but not broken by it. When I offered their autonomy in exchange for peace, it was readily accepted.'

'Not so with the Easterlings?' asked Losfaron.

Aragorn shook his head, and there was regret in his eyes but no doubt. 'Rhûn has been longer under Sauron's sway. There the mighty were collaborators in their bondage, and they did not wish to hear my terms. It is my hope that by pardoning those common folk who have shown earnest intent I may slowly change hardened hearts. I do not know if it can succeed in this generation or the next, but I am hopeful that yet in my lifetime I will see peace between Rhûn and the West.'

Losfaron had no need to clarify this. The Heirs of Elendil had within them the blood of Westernesse, and so a measure of longevity unknown to common mortals. The King's words heartened him. If there could be forgiveness even for those who had conspired with the Enemy, surely he could ask for pardon for his own failings.

'My Lord…' he began.

Aragorn looked at him sharply, then passed him a currycomb and set to work on Moroch's mane with a soft brush. She trilled happily in the back of her throat, bobbing her head once before positioning it perfectly for grooming. When he found his pattern of smooth strokes, the King spoke.

'You wish to speak of Gollum,' he said.

'Aye, my Lord,' said Losfaron humbly. He fixed his eyes upon his work, making long, steady passes of Moroch's withers and flank. 'I gave my word to guard him ceaselessly, and I failed in that charge. What devilment the wretch has done or yet may do I know not, but for all of it I am most surely to blame!'

'Gollum shall do no more devilment upon this earth,' said Aragorn softly. 'He is dead.'

'Dead?' Losfaron exclaimed, torn between astonishment, pity and craven relief. 'How? Was he found? Did you capture him yet again?'

'Nay, not I,' sighed Aragorn. 'I said I would not have the fortune or the fortitude to hunt him with success a second time. I tried to trap him, but he eluded me.'

'What evils did he do before he was slain?' Losfaron asked. He dreaded the answer, and yet could not but ask.

'He was not slain,' the King said. 'And he did less evil than I feared, though what he did manage was hurtful enough. Yet there can be no regret for our part in his tale, Losfaron: neither in mine nor in yours. In the end it was all to the good.'

Losfaron frowned, utterly bewildered. 'But I failed in my trust, and he was allowed to escape. Were you not wroth to learn of it, after all you endured in his catching?'

'When I heard the tidings, I was indeed wroth,' said Aragorn soberly. 'I was livid with rage and frustration, in sooth: far more so than I let Legolas see at the time. I felt that all my warnings had been made in vain, laid aside for fine feelings and an improbable dream of curing the incurable. For that I must ask your forgiveness.'

'I? No, never that!' said Losfaron. 'I did heed your warnings, but not well enough. For that folly some of my most loyal soldiers paid with their lives, and the wretch went free to rejoin his foul compatriots.'

'So I too thought at the time,' Aragorn agreed; 'but it was not so. He travelled alone for a time, and secreted himself in the mines of Moria. On Anduin's banks I first caught wind of him again. That memory shall linger long. I thought I walked in a nightmare when I scented him.' Then to Losfaron's amazement he smiled. 'My own failure to snag him a second time was also to the good, my friend: even as your kindliness has proved.'

'I do not understand,' Losfaron said wretchedly. He was around Moroch's other side now, and the King was brushing her tail.

Aragorn regarded him thoughtfully for a long moment. 'Losfaron, how much do you know of the Enemy's defeat?'

For a startled moment the Elf knew not how to answer. He knew what everyone else knew: that the One Ring of the old songs had been found at last, and taken by the Wise. That two halflings had borne it into Mordor alone, while the Lords of the West drew the Eye from its own borders. That the Ring had been destroyed and with it Sauron's power.

'I see you do not know,' said Aragorn softly. He closed his eyes. 'You have heard of Frodo Baggins, Nine-Fingered, who carried the One Ring to its destruction.'

'Yes,' Losfaron breathed. He could not think what more to say.

'It was with he, and with Samwise the Brave, that Gollum fell in,' Aragorn said. 'He wanted only to be near his Precious, of course, and to watch for an opportunity to take it for himself. Yet Frodo tamed him as I could not, and coaxed him in ways beyond the power of Gandalf, and brought out in him a twisted memory of goodness that even your gentle handling could not awaken. And though he did try to do the Ring-Bearers great evil, he did not succeed until the very last.'

'What do you mean?' asked Losfaron, his throat taut with dismay. The murderous wretch, the treacherous creature, the cradle-robbing sneak of night and shadow, had not only escaped, but had found and harried the halflings in whose hands the world's fate had rested. 'What did he do?'

Again the King was briefly silent, his gaze contemplative. 'At the last, the Ring-Bearer was tempted,' he said softly. 'Frodo placed the One Ring upon his finger, drawn by its alluring command made greater than ever by its nearness to its master. In that moment Frodo made himself known to Sauron, and the malice we had drawn so successfully to the Black Gate was turned instead where least we wished it to look: upon the very slope of Orodruin above the Cracks of Doom.'

Losfaron's mouth was too dry for speech, even if he could have thought of words to say. This indeed he had not heard, and the idea was almost unbearable. All that kept him from despair at these tidings was the knowledge that somehow the Enemy had not seized the Ring-bearer or captured the Ring. Somehow, though he could not imagine the means, the halflings had succeeded in their desperate Quest.

'It was a moment of peril such as the world has not known since the destruction of the Two Trees,' said Aragorn. His face was white in the dappled sun that came from high arced windows above. His fingers still moved idly through Moroch's silken tail, but they had no purpose to them. 'Sauron in his wrath dispatched the Nazgûl, those that remained to face our armies at the Morannon. Wheeling they turned and forsook the battle, their fell beasts flying for Mount Doom. Swiftly they would have descended upon the hobbits and taken the One Ring, and all would have been lost. But on that dread day Frodo and Sam were not alone before the fire. They had been followed by one they believed they had left behind.'

Losfaron's eyes grew wide as he understood. 'Not Gollum?'

'The very same,' Aragorn said. He closed his eyes and drew a shuddering breath, like a man yanked back from the abyss in the very moment of his fall. When he opened them again, they were bright with a fever of wonder and inexpressible awe that had about it a faint tang of fear as well as its rich taste of joy.

'At the moment Frodo donned the Ring, Gollum sprang from the shadows. He had seen his moment at last to take what he most wanted in all of Arda, and take it he did. There upon the black stone they grappled, and Gollum bit Frodo's finger from his hand, and with it the One Ring. Yet it was too late for him: he lost his footing and was flung into the fire, the Ring held triumphantly aloft. So it was he, in the end, who brought about its destruction and the salvation of Middle-earth.'

For a time Losfaron could not speak. He stood stricken dumb and struggling to grasp what he had been told. Aragorn waited. His own reverie was past him, and he stepped to Moroch's head, holding his hand before her nostrils and moving it slowly down so that she could follow and give her consent to his touching of her foal. He need not have done so, for Moroch loved him well and trusted him, but the gesture was a dear one. Then the King crouched to a comfortable height, careless of his fine garb, and began to brush the yearling's neck and withers. She did not startle at his touch, though Losfaron alone had ever laid hands upon her until now, and she gave a pleasurable little nicker as he ran the soft bristles over an itching place. Moroch, approving, turned her eyes back upon her master.

'Then it was Gollum who maimed the Ring-bearer,' Losfaron said at last, pained and weary. He had not foreseen such far-reaching consequences, however great his blunder. It was horrifying.

But Aragorn looked up at him with gentle eyes and a sad little half-smile upon his lips. 'Do you not see?' he asked softly. 'Had Gollum not been there upon Orodruin that day, Sauron would have taken the Ring. All the world would have fallen to the Shadow, and there would be war where now there is peace; darkness where now there is light. It would have been like the days when Morgoth overtook all of Beleriand and the Free Peoples were driven to utmost desperation. It would have been the end of all that we treasure, Losfaron.'

He was glad he had not known ere this how grave the stakes had been, and how small the hope. Losfaron had never imagined that Legolas his lord and friend might have been entangled in such a mad and desperate venture. Even now, with the truth laid before him and the hallmarks of victory everywhere about him, he could not quite believe that goodness had conquered: not in the face of such vast peril. He had not known before how desperate the efforts against the Enemy had been, nor paused to consider the true cost of failure.

'It is unthinkable,' he breathed.

'Yes. But still you do not see,' Aragorn said, patient as if speaking to a beloved child grappling with a difficult exercise in logic. 'Losfaron, had you kept Gollum as I bade you, secure beneath stone and behind oak and iron, he could never have escaped. He would be locked in Thranduil's dungeons even now, whilst the halls above were besieged by Ringwraiths and armies of Sauron's thralls. He would never have come to Moria, never have picked up the trail of the Ring, never fallen in with Frodo and Sam. He would not have been present when at last he was needed to fulfill his final part in the great deeds of his age. Had you not shown him pity beyond his deserving and beyond my bidding, Losfaron, all would have been lost.'

His throat was tight now, and his eyes stung. Losfaron understood what the King was saying to him, but he could not quite make sense of it. Somehow his negligence had been turned to the good through a labyrinth of evil happenings. It did not make sense.

'Your kindness, and Legolas's, and that of all your good-hearted guards did not sow misfortune,' said Aragorn. He rose, leaving the brush upon the floor but keeping one palm consolingly on the yearling's head. His other he placed on Losfaron's shoulder so that they stood eye to eye. 'In ways not even the Wise could have foreseen, that small act of generosity that led to Gollum's escape became a stone in the path of destiny that led us to this.'

He gestured broadly as if to encompass the stables, but Losfaron knew it extended far beyond that. Aragorn, Elessar Envinyatar whose own role in the downfall of the Enemy had been as great as any save perhaps that of the Ring-bearers themselves, was speaking of the vast world about them, now free from the Shadow.

'It was a little thing: to take a pitiful prisoner from his cell that he might feel the night wind,' said Aragorn. 'Yet it is upon such small kindnesses that Light and Goodness must thrive. None could have faulted you for your good heart even had the consequences been dire. But now you have a share in our victory, and a stake in the peace your mercy helped to bring. Rejoice in that, and realize there is no need for pardon or apology.'

Losfaron swallowed painfully, trying to maintain his composure despite the joy that now sang in his heart. It was not joy for himself alone, but for all of Middle-earth. In that moment, the triumph over evil felt more real to him than at any time since the fall of Barad-dûr six months ago. Until now it seemed as if he had been walking in a beautiful dream, only to awaken to find it had all been true and more besides.

'Aragorn,' he said, his voice coarse with the potency of his epiphany. 'I must thank you. Even had I known all this, I do not think I would have seen my folly to have any part in the goodness that has come to the world. It has been said that you are Elven-wise, but to that I must cry false. You are wiser than this Elf, at least.'

Then the King laughed, so clear and so joyous a laugh that Moroch whinnied her agreement and the tall war-horse stamped his approval. Even the little unnamed yearling danced her slender hooves in infectious delight. Aragorn clapped Losfaron on the shoulder.

'Even the wisest cannot always see their own virtues, or they may dwell overlong upon their perceived misjudgments,' he said. 'Let us talk no more of matters of doom. Tell me of your adventures since last we met. I have heard you maintained the borders of Thranduil's realm while he marched to war? As I have said to others, such labours are noble and too oft unsung.'

For a time they talked, while they finished grooming the two horses and settled them in the stall together. At last they stood leaning their forearms on the rail and looking as the filly savoured some sweet oats and Moroch caressed her firstborn with the underside of her jaw.

'What is her name?' asked Aragorn, nodding to the yearling.

'I have not yet given her a name,' said Losfaron, a little dreamily. 'At first it seemed there was much time to find one fitting, and then…' He shrugged his shoulders. 'With the fall of the Enemy and news of the coming of the King to Gondor, I began to think perhaps her master would prefer to name her. I call her my pretty one, for her mother has already laid claim to 'lovely' and to 'fair'."

'That seems thoroughly fitting to me,' Aragorn said. 'But who is her master, if not you?'

Losfaron straightened his back and squared his shoulders. The King did likewise, a half-smile of mingled puzzlement and comprehension upon his face. There was a question in his eyes, too, and a protest. Before he could give voice to any of this, Losfaron held out his hands in a gesture of offering.

'Doubtless Your Majesty has many mighty steeds at his command, and doubtless he has received far more splendid gifts,' he said; 'but I beg you to accept this nimble-footed little maid as a present from two old friends who wish to give of their best.'

Now it was the King who shook his head in reverent disbelief. 'She is a princely gift, Losfaron, but she is too young to be taken from her mother.'

'What need is there of that?' the Elf asked, smiling. 'We have been called here to bring trees to gardens of stone. It is a labour that will last two years at least, and likely many more. While I dwell in your fair city, may they not be stabled together? And when at last we depart, I know that Moroch will be proud and contented to cede her offspring to your care.'

At this Moroch whinnied her sanction, tossing her proud head and turning from her babe to lean over the rail. Aragorn reached to scratch her ears, and she closed her eyes in bliss. 'So be it,' he said. 'Netyamair shall she be called, the pretty one, and she will be the jewel of my stables. Thank you, Losfaron of the Greenwood. I am fortunate indeed to have such friends, and it is my joy to have you as guests in my realm.'

'The joy is ours, good King,' said Losfaron, joining in the stroking of Moroch's neck. The peace was not only Arda's but his own, he saw now. The days of the Renewer were upon the land, and he would rejoice.

From his well-appointed stall, the great warhorse snorted indignantly; one might more accurately say jealously. Again Aragorn laughed.

metta

Appendix B: The King at the Door

The wall had been mended and the damage to the outbuildings for the most part repaired. There was to be no salvaging of the north byre, but the foundations for a new one had been laid. Scorched trees had been pruned or felled as their condition warranted, and the two toppled hives had been put right. On the day the letter arrived, life in the household of Grimbeorn son of Beorn had resumed much of its normal rhythm.

Only the very fringe of the battles had touched the fertile farmlands. The horde of orcs and mountain goblins had stormed the Old Ford, deeming (correctly) that the Carrock was too heavily fortified. They had marched by way of the Road, and only a few raiding parties had ventured North of it. That was fortunate, for most of the menfolk had ridden some days before to the aid of Brand son of Bain and the folk of Dale and the Lonely Mountain. Only the aged and the small boys had remained: even Urdbeorn and his friends had gone East. But hardy were the women of the Beornings, and they had not fled their homes or abandoned their villages.

In the Town at the Carrock, the womenfolk had held the walls stalwartly against all comers, and with it the river-crossing. On the other bank of Anduin there were fewer fortifications and more harm was done to chattel and property, but still there was little loss of life. Much thanks was owed to the outriders who had brought the call to arms from the mountains, ensuring that all knew the orcs were coming.

Grimbeorn’s lodge had been the chief refuge during the dark days. Old folk and children from the surrounding area had been housed in the house while the able-bodied women had stayed to defend their homes and farmholdings. Freya had seen to the care and feeding of the houseguests, while Clothilde directed the fortification of the low walls with a parapet of sharpened staves. And in the long hall, Una had organized a field infirmary where she and her grandmother had tended the wounded.

For four days the raiding parties had come, greedy for the last of winter’s provender and the well-fed and well-tended livestock of the Beornings. Much of both had already been moved to Grimbeorn’s barns and granaries, for the warnings had been timely. Still more were adequately defended by the women patrolling the countryside. They fought with bows and blades, with fire and farm implements. The small companies of orcs were poorly organized and easily overcome, but when the assaults had ceased all had felt weary relief.

Yet wise was the wife of Grimbeorn. At Eira’s command, vigilance was not relaxed nor the livestock removed from the safety of the walled compound. This was well, for although many days passed without event, it was only five days after the breaking of the seige of the Lonely Mountain that the rout of the Enemy reached them.

Most of the foe had fled East into the empty lands, but some tried to win their way back to the caves and crannies of the Misty Mountains. Orcs and scrawny goblins, wargs and wild men upon half-mad horses had come, most often in twos and threes but sometimes in small bands. It was these last that proved troublesome. They were desperate and they were ill-supplied: they fought with the ferocity of the hungry and of those with nothing left to lose. It was they who had breached the wall and laid waste to the cattle-byre.

The women and the older children drove them off. Harlbeorn with his bow was among those who held the gap, and Torbeorn fulfilled his dearest wish when a great bulbous spider scaled the vineyard rails to fall upon his short little sword. The dogs joined in the defence of their home, and even the bees swarmed forth to fight. They were the surest protection against the wargs, for the mad war-wolves feared them and fled before their concerted buzzing without even the need for stingers. For a day and a night the lodge was besieged but not taken, and the armies of the Free Peoples were close upon the heels of the foe.

Bardings and Beornings, Elves and Dwarves and woodmen: all mustered to cleanse Mirkwood of its filth. Many made straight for Dol Guldur, but others fought in the eaves of the forest or pursued those hoping to despoil the farmlands. Of these, the wounded made their way to Grimbeorn’s home and the extemporaneous house of healing: Men and Elves alike. Most of the Dwarves did not march so far westward, but Eira and Una did tend to two.

Through those days, grandmother and granddaughter had labored tirelessly, staunching wounds, salving burns and setting limbs. Una knew she did both of her teachers proud. She swiftly grew skilled at drawing arrows from ribs and shoulders, and she discovered that she could stitch riven flesh with far more skill than she plied on baby clothes. She had even assisted her grandmother in two amputations of gangrenous limbs, white-lipped but steadfast. By the time the tide abated she could change almost any sort of dressing in less than three minutes, much to the amazement of fourteen-year-old Ufrún, who was the chief waterbearer to the wounded.

The menfolk returned on the ides of April, after most of their folk had already come home to their homes and holdings. They were all blessedly alive, and only Randbeorn had taken any serious hurt – a wound to the thigh that left him limping ungainfully to the left. One of the Elven healers had tended it in the field, and his mother proclaimed the mending to be promising. For Una, the greatest change to be seen among the homecoming heroes was in her youngest uncle. Sigbeorn had gone to war a merry youth, and had returned a sober-eyed man well nigh as grave as his eldest brother.

Though he carried himself with a new confidence, eighteen-year-old Urdbeorn was much his old self. He fell quickly into the routine of wrangling the little ones again, and Una was privately relieved that her good-hearted brother did not seem as wounded in spirit as Sigbeorn. With Grimbeorn once more in the house, the family fell back into their regular rhythms again. This seemed to ease Sigbeorn’s heart, but still he was slow to smile and his laughter was seldom heard.

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He laughed on the day the letter came, however, and the sound brought a joy to Una’s heart that she could never have expected. Sigbeorn had always been more of an older brother than an uncle to her, being but a scant seven years her senior and always playful. When he came around the side of the stable to see the four riders, he threw back his head and laughed for joy: the big bear laugh of their kindred. Breaking into a run that rivaled the careening eagerness of the younger children, he came to catch up the lines of the dappled gelding with the feathered headstall.

‘Welcome home, sister!’ he cried delightedly. He looked like he wished to pluck Heidra down from the saddle, but he never would have dared it. The blood of Beorn flowed in her veins also, and she would have taken exception to such undignified treatment. She reached down instead to tousle his hair, much as Una might have done to Delbeorn.

‘You make it sound as if I’ve been gone for years, little cub!’ Heidra laughed in her turn, looking around at the crowd now gathering.

Most of the children had come running from their play, and now Una’s mother was there, dusting flour from her hands. Her father and Grimbeorn were coming from the direction of the smokehouse, their long measured strides perfectly matched. As Una drew near, Urdbeorn appeared along the same path his herd of followers had taken. He had two-year-old Inga on his shoulders, holding her fast with one hand while the other held Svala’s. She was walking with all the gravity of one soon to be bestowed with the honour of a third birthday, and Urdbeorn was taking tiny mincing steps so as not to outstrip her.

‘It’s been months and months,’ Otkala announced, marching between Heidra’s horse and Kvigir’s so that she could approach the two fat ponies. ‘Come down, Dryffa! I want to show you my new top!’

‘It’s a fine top!’ Delbeorn put in. ‘Harlbeorn made it, and it spins and spins and never stops!’

‘Don’t be silly!’ said Katrín primly. She was the same age as Otkala and Delbeorn, but she always seemed to affect an attitude of what she thought was vastly greater maturity. Una privately thought, and Aunt Clothilde sometimes whispered, that Katrín was just a little spoilt by her father and thus inclined to put on airs. With only two children in the house, it was to be expected. ‘Tops can’t spin forever: they have to stop sometimes.’

‘Otkala’s doesn’t,’ Delbeorn said stubbornly, thrusting out his chin.

‘Now don’t let’s fight already,’ Ufrún said quietly, coming forward to hold the reins so that Dryffa could climb off of her pony’s back. She did so quite capably, though not without a total disregard for the movement of her hems. Her undergown rucked up until it caught on the curve of her little bottom, leaving only her linen shift to cover her sturdy legs. Una suppressed a smile, knowing the despairing sigh Heidra would have offered if she had not had her back to the child.

She, too, was dismounting. At her side, Kvigir was doing the same. Una liked her uncle – the only one she had who was not a blood relation. He was sometimes impatient, and he did spoil Katrín and encourage her timid ways, but he was a good man. He had not ridden off to the aid of Dale, but not from cowardice. All through the days when the Town’s walls had been beset he had provided bread and honey-cakes to sustain the women and the old men defending them. From the evening talk before the great hearth, Una knew that he had done so out of his own stores and without payment. A baker was a prosperous man, but such generosity still represented a sacrifice.

He landed heavily, steady but not graceful. He had not grown up riding horses – had not, in fact, had much by way of comforts let alone luxuries as a child. Considering his poor upbringing, it was a marvel that he was not a miser – this too Clothilde would whisper ‘just between girls’ when neither the menfolk nor the children nor her mother-in-law could hear.

Una went to take his lines, but Sigbeorn beat her to it. He winked as he did so, and she very nearly cheered aloud. If she had known that Aunt Heidra would cure her little brother’s melancholy, Una would have ridden to fetch her weeks ago!

‘How’s Una, then?’ Uncle Kvigir asked, grinning but not drawing her into a squeezing hug as her other uncles would have done. ‘Lovely as ever: you’re all grown up!’

She laughed at this and tossed her dark hair. ‘It’s only been three months since you saw me last! How much could I have grown in such a short time?’

‘Not as much as my Svala-lass!’ Kvigir exclaimed as the toddling child and her gangly escort drew near. He crouched and clapped his hands on his knees before holding them out, and Svala came running with a happy cry. Seizing her and rising in one quick motion, Kvigir tossed her up into the air and caught her deftly. Svala screamed with laughter, kicking her plump little legs in delight. Her uncle swung her onto his hip and ruffled her downy curls. ‘That’s my girl! You’ll be riding a pony of your own in no time!’

‘ ‘Pringtime,’ Svala said, sucking contentedly on her fingers. She was well-spoken but had trouble with her sibilants, which made introducing herself a bit of a challenge.

‘What’s that, poppet?’ asked Kvigir.

‘She can ride a pony in springtime,’ Delbeorn translated with an older brother’s knowing nod. ‘Grandfather said.’

‘Where is Randbeorn?’ Heidra asked, helping Katrín down from her pony and smoothing the child’s headscarf before letting her run to join Halla. The two girls were soon conferring in low giggles.

‘He is here,’ a deep voice proclaimed, dry rather than boastful. Una turned to find her eldest uncle coming up with his new ponderous gait, leaning heavily upon the oaken cane that Sigbeorn had carved for him. ‘Welcome home, sister! Girls.’ He grinned lopsidedly at his brother by marriage. ‘So you’ve brought them ‘round at last! High time, I say.’

‘So do I,’ said Kvigir, returning the broad smile. He and Randbeorn shared a jesting sort of entente that seemed more enjoyable to them than to the rest of the family. No one else was ever certain where they stood with one another. There was some matter between them that had been caught up in Heidra’s courtship, but no one knew quite what it was and the two men had never told anyone. Even Heidra herself, so far as Una could tell, was in the dark. Still they got along in their own strange way, and it was always fascinating (if also at times infuriating) to watch.

‘I heard you’ve spilled your blood for the good of the land,’ Kvigir said. ‘I didn’t expect to see you listing.’

Randbeorn shrugged the shoulder not already taut with his weight upon the cane. ‘I’m told it lends me a certain cockeyed charm. My sister-daughters look well kept, and that’s all I ask of you.’

Kvigir laughed and tickled Svala before setting her down. ‘Run along, poppet!’ he said. ‘I shall help your uncle with the horses.’

‘Thank you,’ said Sigbeorn, with an earnest jerk of the chin. He had none of Randbeorn’s checkered history with the baker, much though he missed Heidra’s presence at the lodge. He was the most frequent visitor to the town for precisely that reason, but the mending of walls and the laying of cornerstones since his return from battle had left little time for calling. He gathered up one pony’s lines, and Kvigir the other. Together they strode off towards the stables with the four mounts clopping patiently behind.

Una’s father and grandfather had reached the assembly at last, even as the children began to disperse back to their play. Grimbeorn shook his head, grinning broadly. ‘Where are my two town kittens?’ he roared. ‘Who’s gone and spirited them away?’

With twin shrieks of merriment, Katrín and Dryffa came charging back. Grimbeorn squatted so that he could catch one in each arm for a great bear hug. Soon he was being showered with kisses and bombarded by tales of the fighting around the town, of the busy bakery, of new hair ribbons and the window-box posies.

Meanwhile Baldbeorn was greeting his sister. He took her hand and kissed her on the cheek, but said nothing. Una’s father was the quietest of the children of Grimbeorn, and he only spoke when he had something worth saying. Consequently when he did speak his words always had great weight to them.

‘Are you going to scold me for keeping away so long?’ asked Heidra with a defiant little toss of the head. When her brother said nothing, she flung her arms about his neck and held him close. ‘I feared you might be slain,’ she whispered. Only Una and Eira were standing near enough to hear, and neither gave any sign that they had. ‘Of all of you, you’re the one who would push on to the last.’

Baldbeorn shook his head slowly, petting her cheek with his thumb as he did his daughters’ when they came to him with their worries. ‘We came nowhere near the last,’ he said quietly. ‘The enemy routed, and we hunted them like mad foxes.’

‘Do you know what happened?’ asked Heidra. ‘All the talk in the Town is garbled and nonsensical: no one really knows just what went on, but there’s those that say that… that…’

She shuddered and hugged her eldest brother nearer. Una saw the fondness in her father’s eyes as he studied her troubled face.

‘That the Shadow in Mordor has been cast down,’ he finished for her. To the Beornings, Mordor was a word out of nightmares and tales of distant horrors. Una had heard all this before, for the men had returned with the tale. They had it second-hand from the folk of the Elven-King, whose southern kindred knew more of these matters than anyone in the North. ‘It is true, and because of it the fortress of horrors has been conquered and its masters are gone.’

‘Gone?’ Heidra breathed, scarcely able to believe it. Una had felt much the same way. The evil of Dol Guldur had always been far more real than the threat of Mordor, for it lay only a few hundred miles away and its influence was far-reaching. It was that hive of hatred that gave strength to the spiders of Mirkwood, and it was from there that the worst of the goblin raiders had always come.

‘Gone,’ Baldbeorn confirmed. ‘I do not understand it, for they were not slain, but they are gone and those wiser than I have promised that they shall never return.’

Heidra let out a heavy sigh, drawing back from her brother and blotting at eyes that had not looked tearful until that very moment. She smiled shakily. ‘And the forest?’ she asked.

‘It will be cleansed. It has already begun, and the Elves mean to make it the green and happy place that it was in the old tales,’ said Baldbeorn. ‘I would not have believed it possible if I had not seen the beginnings with my own eyes.’

Heidra smiled shakily. ‘I don’t know that I do believe it,’ she said. Then she looked and saw the two women, one aged and one only just in her first flower, standing near. ‘Oh, Mother, how foolish of me! Of course you’ll be wanting to talk!’ she said gaily, hurrying to embrace Eira. ‘I’ve missed you so. I’ve missed you all.’

‘There, now, that’s natural in a time of trouble and change,’ Eira soothed in her practical way. ‘Why don’t you come in and wash your face. Then you can sit out of the sun for a while and we can catch up on the children’s doings!’

They started in towards the house, arms about each other’s waists. Una paused a moment or two before following. Her father hung back, and went at last to the bench in the shade of the west wing of the house where Randbeorn was sitting with his lame leg stretched before him. Nothing was said as one brother settled beside the other. Both stared in companionable silence at the brightly painted shutters on the opposite leg of the house.

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With all the excitement of reunions and story-trading, nothing was said of the letter until the family was about to sit down to supper. Then Heidra produced it from her woollen satchel and presented it to Grimbeorn.

‘It came by boat,’ she said. ‘Up the river from Rauros Falls. The boatman said it was brought from Gondor, the great country of men at the river’s mouth.’

The children, chattering happily, neither heard nor would have cared if they had. Una, however, was interested. She could see that Urdbeorn was, too. He was down at the foot of the table, settling Svala with his usual good grace, and he looked up its length in surprise at these words. Gondor was another place out of the old tales, and the very thought of receiving a letter from there was like receiving one from the Moon.

Grimbeorn took the letter from his daughter, turning it thoughtfully in his hands. It was folded into a thick packet held closed by a large black seal. Una’s hands went on laying out spoons, but her eyes were on the letter. She could not quite see what was imprinted in the dark wax, but she could tell that it was very ornate. The writing upon the front of the missive was strange, too. Her grandfather’s name and title stood out boldly in the runes that she knew, but above it in a delicate sweep of arcs and downward strokes there was other writing that she could not read. It was on the tip of her tongue to ask if Grandfather could read them, but the look upon his face stopped her.

His expression was suddenly guarded, but not with fear. Una thought he looked like someone who had come to a sudden wonderful realization, but did not quite dare to believe it was true. Grimbeorn turned the letter again, looking from the seal to the writing, and his fingertips brushed over the words. For having come so far, the letter was in pristine condition. The corners were not crushed, nor the folds twisted. The heavy paper – not vellum or parchment, but costly and impossibly smooth paper – was free from water stains or smudges of dirt. It had been carried very carefully, almost with reverence. Una’s curiosity burned like a brand within her breast, but still she did not speak.

Like one in a trance, Grimbeorn reached to pull his chair back from the head of the table. He sat slowly, eyes still fixed upon the letter. He had turned it again, and was studying the seal. Just then Eira came into the hall with the last platter of food. She laid it out deftly, frowning at her husband.

‘What have you got there? It isn’t going to bite you.’ She motioned to Kvigir that he should sit, taking the place across from Randbeorn. Aunt Heidra was already in her customary seat at her second brother’s side. Some things never changed in the lodge of Grimbeorn, whatever transpired in the wider world. ‘Where did it come from? Dale?’

‘Gondor,’ said Grimbeorn. His voice held the same awed, protective disbelief as his eyes. He wafted a distracted hand. ‘Sit. Sit and eat, my children. Leave me peace to read it.’

It was one of the longest meals Una had ever sat through. The children kept up their usual happy banter, made all the louder and more eager by the addition of two voices. Up at the top of the table, however, an uneasy hush lay over the diners. Some soft words were exchanged, but they had the stilted feeling of conversation made for conversation’s sake. No one neglected their food but Grimbeorn, for all had healthful appetites – some from work, others from play, and others still from a ten-mile ride in the bright spring sunshine. Yet there was a weight of apprehension on the air.

Grimbeorn read the letter through once, and then immediately did so again. Then for a while he sat staring at it with unseeing eyes with his forearm on the chair’s rest. Then he folded up the lower flap to bring the seal back into his sight, and he ran his thumb over the sunken ridges of the imprint. Then again he read the letter, very slowly this time and with eyes that travelled back over certain passages. At last he folded it and set it beside his untouched plate. He took his cup and drank deeply of his mead, a pensive but inscrutable expression upon his lined face. After that he fell to stroking his grey-streaked beard as he stared off into nothingness somewhere just above Torbeorn’s head.

At last Aunt Clothilde made to rise, intending to fetch the rich seed cake that had been prepared as a special treat to celebrate the reuniting of the entire family. Then Grimbeorn’s eyes came back into focus and he raised a staying hand.

‘Peace, daughter,’ he said, his voice deep and solemn and yet somehow joyous. ‘The sweet can wait.’

‘No!’ declared little Inga. She knew several dozen words perfectly well, but that was her very favourite.

‘Yes, little butterfly,’ said Grimbeorn, looking gravely at her and speaking as he might have done to her father. Awed by his tone, Inga’s eyes grew very wide and she popped her fingers into her mouth in imitation of Svala.

‘What is it, Grandfather?’ Una asked at last, unable to restrain herself any longer. She did not know whether to be frightened or elated, and nothing about Grimbeorn’s countenance told her which was right. ‘Is it… what is it?’

‘It is indeed from Gondor,’ said Grimbeorn, grave eyes turning upon his daughter. Heidra’s cheeks were very white, and she was studying him with the same uncertain solemnity that Una felt herself. ‘It is a letter from the King.’

‘There are no kings in Gondor!’ Torbeorn said, rather superciliously. At ten he could not be expected to be attuned to the moods of the adults as children somewhat older or younger were. He spoke as though this were any ordinary conversation to which he might add his ounce of knowledge. ‘The kings are all dead and gone, and the Steward rules instead. The old Steward invited men from everywhere to come and fight for him against the orcs, but that was years and years ago before Father was born.’ He frowned. ‘I wish they still did that. I want to go.’

‘There is a King in Gondor now,’ Grimbeorn said, almost as though the interruption had not happened. He looked down one side of the table and up the other. All eyes were fixed on him now, and even the little ones were silent. Torbeorn caught onto the general hush at last, and shifted uncomfortably on his stool.

‘There is a King in Gondor, and he has sent me his greetings. Emissaries are coming to make a formal bond between our folk and the Men of the South,’ said Grimbeorn; ‘but the King has sent this letter as a friend.’

‘You’re a friend of a King?’ asked Delbeorn eagerly.

‘Of course he is!’ hissed Katrín. ‘King Brand!’

‘No, child: this is another King, far mightier than Brand, may his spirit find rest,’ said Grandfather. He spoke quietly, but his voice resounded through the room. Even the hounds were listening, ears perked. ‘This is the King of the West, of the ancient line of Elendil who was High King over all the land many thousands of years ago.’

It was another name out of legend. The children’s eyes grew wider, and Una felt her heart hammering. At the end of all such stories was the promise that one day Elendil’s Heir would come again and bring a Golden Age, but that was just something they put into tales to spark the imagination – wasn’t it?

‘This King, Elessar he writes that he is named, had a great part in casting down the Shadow,’ Grimbeorn went on. ‘He writes… nay, that is a tale for another time. Children of the Line of Beorn, the King has come again, and he is known to you. He is Aragorn son of Arathorn, whose stories you still beg of Sigbeorn on rainy nights.’

Una’s breath caught in her throat, and she saw her mother’s lips part in silent astonishment. The little ones remembered Lord Aragorn for his tales and for something or other that he had taught them about mending boots, but to the older members of the household he had one great legacy. He was the man who had come to them in rags and gone forth with their humble gifts, only to return and repay their kindness with Freya’s very life.

His visits of two years’ past were hallowed in their memories, and perhaps in Una’s most of all. She remembered how he had cared for her mother, so gentle and so capable and so patient with the ways of the Beornings. Not only had he stemmed the bleeding, but he had allowed Freya her dignity throughout. His quiet ways and his calming voice had been Una’s own model in her care of the wounded during the battles. Aragorn son of Arathorn, Lord of the West, stood strong in her memory. Now he was King?

‘He’s a king?’ asked Halla, puzzled and echoing Una’s own question. ‘But he was all raggedy and patchy, and he didn’t have a crown.’

‘He has a crown now,’ said Grimbeorn. And Eira chided; ‘Clothes make not the man, Halla. Sometimes it is only the great among us who have the courage to venture out in tatters for the sake of duty.’

Halla shook her head. ‘But he was hungry. A King shouldn’t be hungry. And he had that ugly thing, with the great big eyes.’

‘He stank,’ said Delbeorn frankly. Then realizing his words might be misconstrued, added; ‘The ugly thing, not the King.’

Otkala giggled, hiding her mouth with her hands. From below her, Svala piped up; ‘What iff a King?’

‘A great leader of men,’ said Grimbeorn. ‘Greater than I, greater even than Beorn.’

Svala’s eyes were now as round as saucers. No one loomed so large in her imagination as her legendary great-grandsire. ‘Do I know him?’ she asked.

‘He knows you,’ her grandfather assured her, lips curling at last into a small, fond smile. ‘You were just a babe when he came to us, but he held you and he hummed for you.’

‘The ugly thing tried to pinch her!’ Torbeorn remembered, snapping his fingers. ‘Lord Aragorn scooped her up so he couldn’t do it!’

That memory Una had forgotten. Now she was visited with the uneasy certainty she had felt at the time: that the tall, sad-eyed stranger who had lunged on frostnipped feet to catch the baby had feared his peculiar companion would do much, much worse than pinch Svala.

The little girl in question looked anything but aghast. She puffed out her chest importantly. ‘The King ‘cooped me up!’ she said with pride.

‘Just so,’ said Grimbeorn.

Aunt Heidra was frowning, not quite believing all she had just heard. ‘The King of Gondor bided here?’ she asked. ‘Two years past, you said.’

‘Indeed he did,’ said Grandmother. ‘Do you remember that dreadful cold snap we had the month before Inga was born? Right on the brink of spring, days of deep, deadly cold?’

Heidra nodded. ‘We had a blizzard as well, though I’m not sure it crossed the river.’ She smiled down the table at her daughters. ‘The girls were shut up inside for three days, and I thought we’d all go mad!’

‘Well, he came to us in the midst of the cold,’ Eira went on. Her husband had gone back to his pensive silence, but everyone else was listening. Even the children of the house, who had heard the story before, had rapt eyes on their grandmother. It all seemed so much more magical now, knowing what they did. ‘He was indeed raggedy and patchy, as Halla said. Poor man, his clothes were so rent with long wear that it was a wonder he hadn’t frozen long before he reached us. He wasn’t dressed for the weather at all: no cap, no mittens, not even a cloak. He wore a blanket ‘round his shoulders instead. And the thing he had with him…’

She shrugged helplessly, not knowing how to describe the creature. Heidra was obviously more interested in Lord Aragorn than in his strange companion, but to Una’s surprise Uncle Kvigir cut in.

‘What sort of a thing?’ he asked sharply. ‘An animal? A dog?’

‘I thought so too, at first,’ said Randbeorn. ‘But no. It had the body of a man, more or less, but far smaller – smaller even than a dwarf, and not so short in the limbs. Its skin was discoloured, though not from the cold, and it was very thin and wasted.’

‘Even thinner than Lord Aragorn,’ Halla agreed with a frank little nod of the head. Una glanced towards her, remembering eyes hollowed with hunger and arms so lean that the ropes of powerful muscle stood out like cords.

‘Lank hair?’ said Kvigir hoarsely. ‘Long, grasping hands? Nearly naked despite the weather?’

‘And he stank!’ Delbeorn agreed. Again Otkala giggled, joined this time by Dryffa and Svala. Katrín, however, was looking up the table at her father with wide, frightened eyes. Una opened her mouth to speak to her young cousin, but her uncle went on.

‘That man, with the twisted little companion and the blanket on his shoulders. That… that was the King?’ he choked.

His tone brought Una’s eyes back up towards the top of the table. What she saw astonished her. Kvigir’s ordinarily florid face was ashen, and his throat bobbed beneath his bushy beard as if he was swallowing back a lump of sickness. His hands were curled into uneasy fists and he was leaning stiffly back in his chair as if preparing to push back from the table and flee.

‘Yes,’ said Freya, her voice soft with reverence. ‘He returned after Inga’s birth and he saved me.’

‘Have you met him, then?’ asked Randbeorn, frowning at his brother-in-law. ‘You saw him, surely, if you know what the little wretch looked like.’

‘I did…’ said Kvigir. Down the table, Katrín shuddered. ‘I… I saw him in the village on the day after the blizzard passed.’

‘That’s so!’ Sigbeorn exclaimed, a smile of recollection as bright as a jewel on his careworn face. ‘I came across him in the square that day. I didn’t know him then, the more fool me, but he asked after food and I sent him along to you for some bread. He didn’t want to join me at the inn.’

Eira’s gaze turned sharply to her youngest son. ‘You should have insisted!’ she declared. ‘The poor man was near frozen when he came to us, and you left him at the ferry as well!’

‘I couldn’t have known he was coming here,’ said Sigbeorn patiently. He had gone through this lecture before, on the day Lord Aragorn had departed for Mirkwood. ‘He didn’t tell me anything of himself, only said he was hungry and asked where he might find food. On the ferry he say not a word. I certainly couldn’t have guessed he was the Lord of the West. Apart from the rags and the shrivelled little thing, he was dreadfully far from home.’

‘I could not have guessed, either,’ said Kvigir hollowly. Dismay was high in his eyes and his lips moved numbly. ‘I thought he was just… he was so guarded with his name, I thought… I mean, an arrogant beggar’s the worst sort of… and in dark times you can’t ever really know what sort of a man... and that horrid little thing frightened Katrín.’

A little yelp from the far end of the table told Una that Katrín remembered the creature all too well. She pushed back her chair and beckoned to her young cousin, who came running and climbed into Una’s lap. At seven she was an unwieldy load, but Una hugged her close.

‘It tried to pinch Svala?’ Katrín whispered anxiously. Una petted her head and hushed her, once more intent upon her uncle and trying to make sense of his disjointed words.

Heidra had no such difficulty. She was accustomed to Kvigir’s ways, and likely read his face more clearly than his tongue. Her black brows knit together, and she had risen very straight in her chair with the regally squared shoulders of a scion of Beorn the Skin-changer.

‘Do you mean to tell me, husband,’ she said, very clearly and as cold as the wind on that bitter day; ‘that Sigbeorn sent a hungry man to our door for bread, and you turned him away?’

Kvigir’s jaw dropped helplessly as he looked at her. All eyes were on him now, save Inga’s. She had her fingers in the pool of honey left on the platter that had been heaped with cakes, and she was drawing swirling shapes in it.

Now it was Grandmother who spoke, her voice far gentler than her daughter’s but still dismayed. ‘Oh, my lad, you didn’t turn him away?’ she breathed. ‘He was fairly starved when he reached us, and half-frozen.’

‘He came begging,’ Kvigir protested feebly. ‘When I asked his name he refused to speak it, and I thought… even so I could have found a crust to spare if that thing hadn’t frightened Katrín. In dark times a man must care first for his children.’

Una was surprised when it was her mother, not Heidra’s, who spoke to this. Freya planted the palm not occupied in holding Inga on her lap; it came down upon the table with a slap that sent the jars of mead rattling.

‘You cannot tell me that you believed Lord Aragorn might harm your daughter!’ she cried. ‘So gentle a man I have never known, and so patient with children that he offered stories instead of dismissal when he had hardly the strength to stand!’

Kvigir looked at her in astonishment. Freya was ordinarily calm and collected, especially at board. Una often envied her mother’s poise, being herself much bolder and less graceful. The sharpness of her voice now was startling to everyone but Eira, who nodded stoutly in agreement, and Grimbeorn, who was seldom surprised by anything.

‘Not he, not really,’ stammered Kvigir. ‘I mean, he did not look the reputable sort, with those rough clothes and his grim face. He had a great long knife… but no.’ He closed his eyes and jerked his head as if trying to convince himself. ‘No, it was the little thing. It frightened Katrín, and when Dryffa stuck out her tongue at it I thought…’

‘And a great big man like you could not overpower such a shrunken creature?’ Randbeorn said disdainfully. ‘I did not take you for a coward.’

‘I trusted you to feed him!’ Sigbeorn exclaimed indignantly. ‘He asked where he might find a little food, and I told him you were the one he wanted. I thought – you’re always so generous with the poor folk, I was sure you would help him!’

‘To turn any man away on such a day!’ cried Heidra. ‘What was wrong in your head, husband? Such a shameful—’

‘Peace.’ It was Baldbeorn who spoke, and his deep, steady voice comforted Una as nothing else could. He waited until his siblings were still, and looked to each of them in turn before speaking again. ‘We cannot judge Kvigir’s choices by what we know now. Our father recognized Aragorn from the first. If he had not would we have brought him into the hall, or offered shelter in the stables instead? Randbeorn, you did not trust in his worth at first, but took him for a careless traveller instead of a mighty one brought low by misfortune and malice. And you, Sigbeorn. You thought him beneath your notice as well, or you would have offered more than simple courtesy. Why did you not take him with you to the inn, as our mother has said? Why did you not feed him yourself, if you knew he was hungry? As for you, sister, have you never scorned a man for his rags and dirty hands? Not even once?’

Aunt Heidra flushed crimson and her eyes dropped to her lap as if she could bear neither her brother’s gaze nor her husband’s pained expression. At first Una was bewildered, but when Kvigir too cast away his eyes she thought she understood. She was too young to know the particulars of their courtship, but perhaps at first Heidra had spurned him?

‘Precisely,’ said Father, firm and grave. ‘As for Kvigir’s fear that the creature might have hurt Katrín, that is in no way unreasonable. Lord Aragorn himself had like fears. It was those that drove him to leave us so swiftly despite his poor condition: he believed Svala had narrowly escaped grave harm.’

He let this hang upon the air for the span of three breaths – three of Una’s breaths, anyhow. Uncle Kvigir’s chest was heaving as if he had run a hard mile. He still had a hunted look in his eyes. Among the adults, if at nineteen his eldest niece was yet too young to be counted, only Grimbeorn and Clothilde had not spoken to his folly.

‘He might have given them bread and sent them off!’ cried Heidra. ‘To drive any pauper from the door when we have so much is hateful!’

Kvigir’s face fell in agony at his wife’s accusations. ‘My love, I…’

‘You know what it is to be hungry!’ she cried. ‘How often you’ve said to me that we must be giving to those who have nothing… how diligently you provide for Einarr’s grandsons… what could you have been thinking?’

‘He was a stranger, not one of our folk,’ Kvigir protested hopelessly. ‘He was foul-smelling and insolent. And that creature…’ He scowled deeply. ‘I heard him out,’ he said. ‘I offered bread in trade for his tale, and he would not give it. I gave him more courtesy than was given to me in my turn, and with less cause.’

Now Eira sighed and reached across the table and past her elder sons to pat the baker’s clenched fist. ‘At our door you were always welcomed with kindness, my lad. I had hoped it was that you would remember, and not the other.’

Kvigir looked at her, his eyes now plaintive and helpless. ‘I do remember, Mother Eira,’ he said softly. ‘It has troubled me, what I have done – on cold days most of all. He asked my pardon in the end, after I denied him. He left with a blessing on my house, instead of curses. I knew then I had done wrong, but I was not bold enough to mend it.’

Solemnly Grimbeorn nodded. ‘Denied his poor alms, but departing with a blessing: that is the Lord Aragorn’s nature. No one could be a more worthy King.’ He looked at his children: Baldbeorn with his grave face unchanged, Randbeorn torn between irritation and grudging sympathy, Heidra with the colour still high in her cheeks but kinder eyes now for her husband, and Sigbeorn as thoughtful as his sire had been while poring over the letter.

‘It seems he was given disparate treatment by our many hands: disdain from some, from others disinterest, from still others eager fascination, and from others all the care and kindness we have to offer. The first two he forgave, and of the last he had the greatest need. Yet it was the third, I think, that gave him the most joy.’ Grimbeorn looked down the table at his grandchildren and smiled. ‘The wisest of us all are the youngest, for they made him welcome as an honoured guest and it was they who brought from him his smile.’ He picked up the letter and brandished it aloft. ‘He remembers you with love, children, and each by name: from Ufrún and her eggs to tiny Inga, who was but a week born when he saw her.’

At the sound of her name, Inga looked up and smiled so that her little pearl teeth glistened. Then she fell happily to licking her sticky fingers. Grimbeorn planted one foot firmly, and with his strong leg pushed his chair back from the table. He rose. ‘Let us gather by the fire, and I shall read the King’s words. They are for all of us, whom he calls dear friends. When the ambassadors come, they will great me as a lord of my folk. Then I shall send grand words of praise, pledges of fealty, and kingly gifts, and there shall be much ceremony and lofty talk, but this letter is for us. Come, and let us share it as a family.’

He drew his chair near the hearth and sat. Eagerly the children scrambled, the small ones first of all, to gather around his feet. Of the grown folk, Baldbeorn rose first and held his arm out to Freya. She stood, eyes shining with joy and wonder. He who had saved her from death was King, and in her mother’s eyes Una could see that the Golden Age of the old stories had indeed come, though it was only beginning. She let Katrín slide off her lap.

‘Go on and sit by Dryffa,’ she whispered. ‘Afterwards I shall tell you both the tale of how the King came to our door!’

Katrín smiled eagerly, her fear of the creature called Gollum forgotten. She hurried off to join the throng, falling into step next to Urdbeorn and taking his strong hand. The men were drawing up chairs for their wives, so that they too might join the circle before the head of the family: Father for Mother, Randbeorn for Clothilde, and Kvigir for Heidra. Sigbeorn shifted his chair so that he was facing his father, but remained where he was with one arm resting lazily upon the table. He looked more like his old self than he had in all the weeks since his return. At last Una got to her feet, just as her grandmother came down the table to fetch her.

‘Well, child, what do you make of that?’ Eira asked. ‘You have bathed the feet of a King, and learned much of healing from his example. That makes you his handmaid, of sorts. Does the honour please you?’

Una considered. She thought of the wayworn vagabond who had scarcely the strength to lift his head and yet bore patiently the painful tending of his frozen limbs. She remembered how the lines of his face had softened in slumber as he lay bundled upon a pallet by the hearth. She called to mind his delight in the children, and his abashed amusement at her flirtatious teasing on the morning he strode out into the cold again. Clearest of all she saw the competent compassion in his eyes as he pressed upon her mother’s belly to stem the bleeding in her womb. And the clear-eyed resolve with which he had ridden westward in the company of the wizard, on towards whatever great deeds he had done in the casting down of the Shadow.

‘It is not the honour that pleases me. Be he King or wanderer, it is well to serve one who himself so tirelessly serves,’ Una answered, and she moved to take her place at her grandfather’s feet. She did not see her grandmother’s slow, proud smile.

metta

Appendix C: The Queen’s Companions

On the second day after the Lady’s marriage, Lord Celeborn himself came to the chamber Calmiel shared with her sister in one of the guesthouses of Minas Tirith.

She had just returned to the quiet of the room, having seen to Aithron’s noon meal. He ate better for her than for others, doubtless remembering in some distant way the trials they had shared. Sometimes she wished she might have shared the last trial with him also. Perhaps they might have kept one another strong where a single spirit could not hold.

It was a bitter thing to see her once-proud Captain brought low. He did not speak – might, so said Master Elrond, never speak again until he found the healing of Valimar – and he moved only as prompted. He shied from sudden sounds, and in the darkness there was nothing that would comfort him. On the southward road he had been assigned a little tent all his own, that a lamp might be kept burning through the nights. In other circumstances so wounded a soul would not have been brought on a long journey, but these were strange times. Lady Galadriel had hoped that Master Elrond might mend Aithron, or at least allay his suffering a little. But even the greatest of healers yet left in Middle-earth had been able to do little.

They were the last two left of their little company. Rimbir had been slain in the first terrible assault upon the borders of Lothlórien, and Hithfaer had fallen before Dol Guldur. Calmiel wished he might have lived long enough to see the hostages recovered from the clutches of the Ularí, that he might have known Aithron was once more among friends. She supposed he knew now. In Mandos, it was said, all things were known.

So it was with a heavy heart that Calmiel retreated to the guest chamber that day. Had she not been so mournful she would have gone out to join the revels. The whole City was abuzz with merriment, for the feasting and song and libations in the wake of the wedding of the new King were still at their height. It had been a thing of beauty, that mortal rite before the people, the gathering in the high hall near the tall White Tower, and most of all the look of joy unrivalled upon the Lady Arwen’s face as she and her beloved withdrew at last to be married in truth.

All of Calmiel’s life, the Evenstar had been a figure of beauty and a model of grace unrivalled. She remembered how, as a small child in Rivendell, she had haunted the Lady’s steps like a fawning pup hungry for the slightest attention. She had never had to hunger long, for the daughter of Elrond was kind and she was possessed of a great patience for small children. She had been ever ready with a tale or song as she went about her business or sat stitching in the sunshine. Still better, she had been glad to teach the rudiments of her crafts to eager little hands. Though Calmiel had pursued a martial path rather than an artistic one, she still had the skills learned in the lazy afternoons of her girlhood.

How wondrous it would be to see the Lady Arwen with children of her own! She had longed for them, Calmiel knew, since her betrothal beneath the spring splendour of the mellryn years before. As one of the few folk of Imladris dwelling in Lórien, Calmiel had passed what time she could in the presence of the Lady. She knew how quiet, how pensive she had been upon her return after that first visit to her father’s house after the mountains had been cleansed of orcish filth. Not so long settled in her new home, Calmiel had felt still more removed from all she had known by her Lady’s strange solemnity. Not until much later did she understand. Even then, before he came to her in the raiment of a great lord of old, the last of the Heirs of Elendil had held sway over Lady Arwen’s heart.

Now together they were in bliss: radiant in their joy. Calmiel was glad. That good most of all the joys of this new world stirred her heart. She had known him also, who reigned now under the name of Elessar. She had not remembered him at first when he stumbled upon the borders of the Golden Wood with his strange and foul captive in tow. Only after Lord Celeborn’s coming had Calmiel recalled the keen-eyed fosterling who had dwelt in the Last Homely House in those last few years before the march to cast out the Necromancer. She had had no dealings with him, but a merry mortal child left ripples wherever he went, most of all in a sedate and ordered valley. She remembered.

She wished this might go on forever: these glimpses of their bliss. Would that she could watch them live and flourish, and make all this stony place flourish with them. Mayhap she might learn more of Elessar, who had come to her swath of woodland as Aragorn. Mayhap she might become not only a subject but a friend to her beloved Lady. But it was not to be. Soon the Elven hosts would depart, and Calmiel would go with them. She would be Aithron’s nurse for a time, until he departed into the West, and then…

She did not know. Not until the second day after the wedding, when Lord Celeborn came to her chamber.

The knock upon the door was light and courteous. Calmiel had supposed it was one of the King’s servants, bringing her own noon meal, and it was with little enthusiasm that she had gone to answer. She had no appetite now.

But she dropped into a curtsey at once as she opened the door, the skirts of her light silken gown billowing with the motion. Her customary marchwarden’s garb was unsuitable in this place where the roles of male and female were so rigidly defined. She bowed her head in respect even as she rose again and stepped back to admit the silver-haired Lord.

‘Lord Celeborn!’ she breathed, more astonished than awed by his presence. She honoured him and respected him greatly, but he was not lofty and remote to her. Not since that day when she had come to Caras Galadhon bearing the name of Estel upon her lips.

‘Calmiel the Hawk-sighted,’ he said equably, smiling as he came into the room and closed the door with a gentle hand. ‘I hope I do not keep you from your repose?’

‘No, my Lord,’ she said. She tried to smile, but her eyes were sad. ‘Why do you honour me with your presence?’

‘I wish to speak with one of my loyal warriors: is that not reason enough?’ Celeborn’s smile, too, had sadness in it, but also fondness. ‘Shall we sit?’

They went not to the little table by the window, but to the handsome rug before the unlit hearth. There was no need for fire in these glorious summer days: the cool of the stone walls was welcome instead of bitter. Cross-legged Celeborn sat, and Calmiel knelt to face him. Almost they might have been back in the quiet clearing where the marchwardens had dined with their Lord and the ragged but most honoured guest.

‘What is your intention, child?’ the Elf-lord asked.

‘My intention?’ she echoed, unknowing.

‘Will you depart these shores with Master Elrond and my own dear Lady?’ said Celeborn softly. ‘Do you mean to sail the Straight Road to Valinor?’

‘I do not know,’ said Calmiel earnestly. ‘I am not weary of Middle-earth. Still it is new and beautiful to me, and it will grow more beautiful still with the Shadow overthrown at last. I would not leave it yet, had I the choice.’

‘You have the choice,’ Celeborn said. ‘Each one of us does. Nor is that choice irrevocable, save for some.’ There was a wistful sorrow in his eyes for a moment, and then he smiled. ‘I too shall sail one day, but not until my work here is done. There is much yet to heal and make whole, and much beauty, as you say, to bring into this newly freed world.’

‘Then I may tarry with you if I wish?’ asked Calmiel. ‘Even now there will be a use for my bow: that much is plain. Though the Enemy is gone, many of his servants remain. Not all will cast down their arms at the feet of a good King, whatever clemency he offers.’

‘No, not all will cast down their arms,’ said Celeborn. ‘And some will come by night and stealth, and seek to undo the good that has been done and to rob the King of all that he has gained. Against that the folk of Gondor will have to guard, for it is none of my affair save in one particular. One treasure I share with Aragorn son of Arathorn, and though it be not my chiefest duty to safeguard her I would do what I may.’

‘Of course!’ Calmiel explained. ‘Of course you will do all you can to protect her. I had not thought… it did not seem possible that even thralls of Mordor could bear to harm one so kind and so fair.’

‘That is precisely why they would wish to harm her,’ said Celeborn with a sad listing of the head. ‘You are too young, I think, to remember the first Lady of Imladris?’

‘Your daughter,’ whispered Calmiel, dropping her eyes to her lap. The sorrows of the Lady Celebrían had haunted Rivendell all her life. ‘But surely such a thing could never happen to the Queen.’

‘Never, if there is strength in the King’s arm to prevent it,’ said Celeborn. ‘Yet there are many labours yet laid before Aragorn son of Arathorn. He cannot be always at her side, nor can he afford to fear for her when he is abroad securing his kingdom and the safety of his people. Long he trusted in us, in the folk of Lothlórien and of Rivendell, to be her defenders if ever the need arose. Now he must trust to short-lived Men and walls of stone. I would give him one more surety. I have spoken to my granddaughter, and she is in accord.’

It sounded prudent to Calmiel. It was a broad and dangerous world, however free, and the Lady Arwen had never dwelt beyond the bounds of an Elven realm. It could do no harm to protect her in every possible way. Perhaps, too, it might give some peace of mind to those who were to leave her behind as they sailed for the Twilight.

‘What surety?’ she asked.

‘A guard,’ said Celeborn. ‘The Queen’s Guard. A small Company, no more than ten, to be the innermost line of defence for the Lady Undómiel. They would walk in other guise, their true duty known only to a few, and they would dwell within this City or travel in her company as the need arose.’

‘That is wise indeed,’ agreed Calmiel, nodding. ‘Do you wish me to help you choose from among the male marchwardens? The folk of this place would never accept a guard of maidens, if they cannot even countenance the wearing of a pair of hose.’

Celeborn smiled. ‘That is true, and in that would lie the great strength of this proposed Company. None would know they were warriors, for in dress and deportment they would appear the Queen’s companions and handmaids. Yet though delicate their hands would be deadly at need, and their eyes watching sharply for more than fair flowers and finery.’

Calmiel’s lips parted. This she had never considered, but it was indeed a remarkable concept. A secret Guard for Her Majesty, to go with her where the Men in their sable tabards and high helms could not. She scarcely dared to hope, but she spoke anyhow.

‘And you wish me to be among them, my Lord?’ she asked tremulously, fearing his denial.

And he did shake his head. ‘Nay, child. I would have you lead them. No more fitting Captain can I think of for such a Company, and you have known my granddaughter in both her homes. You may prove a touchstone for her in this new one. Your valour in my service has been exemplary, and Elrond also praises your skill and your courage. It would ease his heart, I think, to know that one such as you stood close by his daughter.’

‘Captain? I? But I am so young, so inexperienced beside the great warriors of my people; beside the Noldor of old. Why, Lathil fought beneath the standard of Gil-galad—’

‘And Lathil will sail with Master Elrond when he goes,’ said Celeborn. ‘It is the young among our folk who will wish to tarry: the young and those, like I, who have known the forests of the earth since before the coming of the Noldor. If you do not wish this duty, it shall not be pressed upon you. Nor need you be bound to it indefinitely. Yet I have come to you first of all because you are my prime choice, and the Queen’s.’

‘What of Aithron?’ Calmiel asked.

‘He shall be cared for,’ said Celeborn. ‘He could have no better nurses than they who studied under Elrond Half-Elven. Your own sister will be among them, at least as far as the Havens.’

Calmiel nodded. Faeliel was the elder of the two, and she had turned to the gentlest of arts where her sister had chosen the harshest. She was patient and kind, and she would heed Calmiel’s words about the former marchwarden’s care. She had already taken some small hand in it: she would do well. Master Elrond, too, would be ever present if there was need. It would be another sad parting, but she could bear it.

‘When shall I go to her?’ she asked. ‘When shall I begin my service to Queen Undómiel?’

‘As soon as you wish it,’ said Celeborn. ‘Yet you must assemble your Company also. Among the ladies of Lórien and Imladris there must be those known to you who would take joy in this duty.’

‘There are!’ Calmiel pledged, three names springing already to mind. It remained only to ask what had been asked of her: whether they intended to sail or no.

lar

In the end, she chose eight. It had proved a simple task, far simpler than it would be to grow used to the noblewomen of Gondor and their blushing daughters. There came a morning when Calmiel gathered her maidens, clad in graceful gowns and fair colours instead of serviceable woodland green, and brought them to the House of the King.

She was greeted by a chamberlain who treated her with the deference due a highborn lady. Her Majesty’s Companions, it seemed, were held in awe by the mortal denizens of the Citadel. The others were given refreshment, which they accepted with sweet thanks and knowing glances. They understood that in secrecy lay their greatest strength and none would speak of their true role, but it would take time before their amusement at the playacting waned.

Calmiel herself was brought to a splendidly furnished room set with great windows that let in the sun almost as freely as a flet would have done. There, shoulder to shoulder upon a tall couch, sat the King and Queen of the West.

‘Do not kneel, Calmiel,’ said the Queen, smiling warmly as the marchwarden moved to do just that. ‘Come near, that I may look upon you. The gown suits you beautifully.’

It felt strange to walk in such fine garments, long and trailing, and to plait her hair with velvet ribbon instead of leather, and to walk without her bow. She had a long knife bound to her calf, invisible beneath the folds of violet silk. At need she could call for other weapons. Yet it was with her eyes and her knowledge that she would best guard her Queen. She drew near and stopped three paces from the couch, humbled and elated at once.

‘You remember Calmiel,’ Arwen said, turning to the King with a smile. ‘She was one of your minders when you came so unexpectedly upon a hallowed border with a thing of malice at your heels.’

‘Verily I remember,’ said the King. He looked so young and fair, so joyous. That was what had first struck Calmiel when he met the hosts of the Eldar at the City Gate: how transformed he was by the passing of his greatest labour and the fruition of his hopes. Now his eyes glinted playfully. ‘Calmiel alone counselled clemency, and she was upbraided for it – accused, so I recall, of being a marchwarden of Imladris, and of wishing to bathe my companion in rosewater.’

A laugh sprang from Calmiel’s lips at the memory, before she could reflect upon whether it was fitting for a Captain to laugh before her King. But the Queen was smiling, and Elessar himself laughed. Then he halted, as if startled, and laughed again all the harder.

‘What is it?’ asked Arwen, twisting to regard him quizzically. ‘You are not as witty as all that, my love.’

‘Nay, it is not that!’ said the King. From amid his fine garments he produced a silken handkerchief edged in the Queen’s ephemeral whitework, and he blotted at his tears of mirth. More sober now but still grinning, he explained; ‘Not once in all that long journey, nor in the sorry time that followed, did I think I might one day laugh to think of it – however the world was changed. For that I must thank you, Calmiel.’

‘The thanks is not mine alone, my King,’ she said. ‘It was Aithron who devised the plan for your prisoner’s putative welcome.’

His smile grew graver, a strange expression both sorrowful and filled with pride in those who had been taken by the Shadow. ‘I was grieved to hear of his torment. It is said the Ularí wounded his mind beyond the means of these hither shores to mend.’

‘So it is said,’ Calmiel acknowledged. ‘Yet he fought valiantly the foe until the last.’

‘It is only in the fighting that such hurts may be done,’ said Elessar softly. ‘He will be remembered with honour, and I shall remember him as a comrade. For all his stern words he was kind to me, and never spiteful in the discharging of his duty.’

‘It is of duty that I wished to speak, beloved,’ said the Queen, taking his arm and lifting loving eyes to his. ‘Calmiel has not come to bring you mirth alone.’

That was when she, simple soldier that she was, realized at last that the King had not been told of these arrangements. Unsure of how to take this, she stood still and silent and waited for the Evenstar to speak further.

‘I present to you, Elessar the Renewer, the chief among the Queen’s Companions,’ Arwen announced, wafting her free hand to Calmiel. ‘Or as they shall be known between us, the Queen’s Guard.’

For a moment the King was puzzled. Then understanding dawned and his face changed. Such delight and relief did Calmiel see there that she understood at last what Lord Celeborn had said to her. This Guard he had mustered was no gift for the Queen in her new home, but for King Elessar. It was the gift of peace of mind; for this City was his new home also, and its Men yet untried in many respects though they had flourished at other trials. Nearest his beloved would stand those he knew well, in their ways if not in their individuality. It was a comfort and a joy.

The Queen bade Calmiel sit, and they sat for a time discussing the particulars of the arrangements. The King had his own thoughts to add, for in the art of disguising the extraordinary as the common he was a master to rival any of old. When at last the other maidens were sent for, Calmiel understood well the scope of her new command. She would discharge it with all the skill and courage given to her. A new and wondrous day was dawning, and she would tarry on these shores to witness it.

And perhaps, she thought as she looked upon the King and Queen seated together as near as was possible, she might see her Lady with a child of her own yet.

metta

Appendix D: To Visit the King

It was the crowd that amazed Osbehrt most of all: the sheer number of people, hundreds-and-hundreds of them everywhere you looked! Annis said, in her supercilious eight-year-old way, that when you got enough hundreds together in one place, you were supposed to call them thousands, but Osbehrt disagreed. He thought that hundreds-and-hundreds sounded much bigger than thousands. And there were so many people that he needed the biggest number he could get in order to explain them.

There were people crowded in the city, in houses and inns and stables and storehouses. Anyone who had kin or friends or trade partners in Edoras was staying within the walls of the city, and many more who had arrived early enough were encamped on properties belonging to the King. Of old this would never have been allowed, Father said, but Rohan had a new, young King who was eager and bounteous. They were at the dawn of a new time of peace and plenty, Father said, and the new King wished to usher it in with welcome and generosity.

But all of these hundreds-and-hundreds of people could not possibly be housed in the city. They spilled onto the plain, sheltering in farmyards or cattle-byres, spreading their tents, or simply sleeping out beneath the stars. There were nearly as many horses as there were people, paddocked or picketed or set quietly to roam. No one seemed to think twice about it, for to the folk of the Mark their horses were as family, but to Osbehrt it was wondrous. He had never seen so many people, but he had never even imagined so many horses, all of them tended and loved and beautiful.

Osbehrt’s family had a tent. It was no hastily-erected jumble of canvas tarps and green timber, either, but a proper tent with sewn walls and carved poles and a curtain down the middle to close off the sleeping area. It was their summer home, that tent, and although it was old and weather-stained it was tight; sturdy in a storm and cool even in the hottest sun. Osbehrt was proud of his home, and of the neat little cooking area that Mamma had set beside it. He was proudest of all of the position of their camp. It was right beside the great road that wound south to Gondor: the road up which the King would come home.

The old King, good Théoden King, was dead. He had been killed in battle far away, fighting for the Riddermark on a foreign field so that the war need not come home to her green lands. Father had ridden to that battle, in the muster of Lord Elfhelm, Marshal of the Mark. He said that King Théoden had fallen fighting a terrible black beast, and that his sister-daughter, the White Lady, had stood over his body as she slew the thing’s rider.

There was a terror in Father’s voice when he spoke of this, plain even beneath his reverence for his fallen King and Lady Éowyn. Osbehrt did not understand it, and he did not want to ask. It was frightening enough that his father had been in such a battle. Bruntaegl, their faithful old horse, had been killed by an orc’s sword, and Father had leapt from the saddle just in time to keep from being crushed like Théoden King. Osbehrt did not want to think about it, for even worse than the loss of a beloved mount was the knowledge that his father might so easily have died.

Mamma said they must be joyful. Father had not been killed, and the King had been very old. To be sure it was sad that he was dead, but he had defeated the enemies of Rohan and now all could be free. Father said that young King Éomer was merry and brave. He had come home after the battles were over, riding at the head of his army. Father had marched with the unhorsed men, for there were many who had taken such losses in Gondor and far away at the other battle. Of that one Father did not speak, save in whispers to Mamma when they thought the children were fast asleep. Nyle was too small to lie awake listening, but Osbehrt and Annis had both learned much this way. They pooled their knowledge in secret, when Mamma thought they were at play.

Now at last it seemed the frightening times were over. It was the journey to the city that made it real for Osbehrt, and the festive atmosphere of the great sprawling camp of happy folk. Most of the soldiers who had gone to the war had gathered to pay tribute to the great Lord under whose banner they had fought, and after a hard campaign there were many new friendships. Father, who before the war had known few men beyond their own little community of herders, now had friends from all across Rohan. He had friends among the Gondorhim too, he said, and Osbehrt found this wonderful.

The new King had ridden back to Gondor, so that he might bring home Théoden King to be laid to rest in his own land. The great lords and princes of Gondor and of many other lands would ride with him: all the great heroes of the battles that Father spoke of with such reverence. He told stories of the men of the White City, and of King Elessar who had sailed up out of the South to win the battle before its gates. Osbehrt thought these tales were the most marvelous he had ever heard, for they were real and they had happened in his lifetime – not long ago or in imagined lands far away.

So it was on the morning of King Éomer’s return that Osbehrt stood, neat and scrubbed and clothed in his new green tunic and his first pair of real winingas, at the edge of the road with Annis at his side and Father and Mamma behind. Nyle had begged, in his not-quite-three-year-old way, to be allowed to stand with his brother and sister. He had soon tired of waiting, however, and had seated himself in the long grass on the slope of the ditch to pluck a lapful of clover buds. Looking at his little brother, Osbehrt felt a pleasing sense of proprietary seniority. Surely he had never been as small and as simply entertained as Nyle!

The sound of the horns came first, and the jostling crowds began to hush. People were lined up six and seven deep all along the road, but because Father had secured such a good site for their tent, Osbehrt and his family were right in front. Father had an arm around Mamma’s shoulder so that she could lean towards him. She had been so thin and careworn after he had ridden away: those long weeks had seemed even longer to her than to Osbehrt. Now she was rosy-cheeked and always smiling, and she was getting plumper, too. Osbehrt was glad: Father was always saying she was too thin.

‘They are coming! They are coming!’ Annis cried eagerly, dancing up and down on the spot. She too was wearing new clothes: a pretty yellow kirtle and shoes of red leather. Lord Elfhelm had rewarded all those who had fought with him. Father’s stipend had been too little to buy a horse to replace Bruntaegl, but it was good that now they all had good new garments without worn spots or patches. They would get another horse someday, Father promised. The look in his eye when he said it made Osbehrt wonder.

‘I can see them!’ Osbehrt exclaimed in wonder, following his sister’s pointing finger to where a dark mass wound away down the road. There were banners above its head, fluttering brightly in the breeze. Mamma put her hand upon his shoulder, loving and hushing at once.

Again the horns sounded. Now the horses at the head of the column could be seen. The first was ridden by a standard-bearer holding high the proud White Horse of Rohan upon its green field. Behind them rode a guard of Riders, the plumes of their bright helms stirring in the wind. As they drew nearer, Osbehrt could see that they rode in tight formation around an enormous wagon drawn by two snowy white oxen. There upon the wain was a golden bier, and on it lay an old man as if in sleep.

His hair was arrayed about his head, snowy white and gleaming in the sunshine. His beard was combed upon his breast, two fine plaits lying atop it. He wore his mail and the garments in which he had ridden to war – clean now, but stained, they were more honourable than any robes of velvet or satin. Sitting at the King’s feet was a little person, like a child and yet with such knowledge and sorrow and understanding in his eyes that Osbehrt knew he was grown. His hair was brown and very curly where it peeked from beneath his bright helm, and he was clothed in green and white like any knight of the King’s household. In his arms he held a fearsome sword, cradled like a precious treasure.

‘Is that him?’ Osbehrt whispered, reaching back to tug at Mamma’s skirts. He did so by feel, unwilling to take his eyes from the spectacle. ‘Is that the King?’

‘Hush, dear one, yes,’ answered Mamma, very softly. ‘Yes, that is our King, our good, wise Théoden King.’

‘Who’s that beside him? Is that his little boy?’ asked Annis. She moved to point, but Father reached and caught her hand, clasping it firmly but lovingly.

‘That is his esquire,’ he murmured, bending low so that the children could hear. ‘That is Meriadoc the Holbytla, one of the Halflings who came south with Gandalf Greyhame when he rode to meet the King. He carries Herugrim, the sword of the King with which he smote the Serpent.’

Osbehrt looked at the little Rider with new amazement. Everyone talked about the Halflings, and how they had come from far away to throw down the Enemy and drive away the Shadow. In the last few days he had heard more stories than he could even remember of these Holbytla who had appeared out of legend. All the men who had fought in Gondor and away across the Great River spoke of them with reverence.

The wain was passing now, and all the people were silent. No one spoke now. No one bowed or curtseyed as they would have done before the living King. All stood silent, solemn, the men with bared heads and the women with their hands upon their breasts. Children, wide eyed and awestruck, watched as their valiant King passed by. Even the babies seemed to know to be quiet. Among all those hundreds and hundreds of people, scarcely a sound was heard. Many eyes shone bright with tears.

Riding behind the bier on a tall grey horse was a young man, bareheaded and golden of beard. He was clad in the mail of a Rider of Rohan, but over top he wore a green tabard embroidered with the swift White Horse of the royal house. The mane and tail of his horse were braided in many braids, twists of green silk adorning them. His face was sombre as befitted the moment, but there was joy in it also: the joy of a world made free.

‘That is the new King,’ murmured Father. ‘Sister-son to Théoden was he, and he led us over the river to the last battle before the Black Gate.’

Mother made a soft sound and reached for his hand, clutching it as if she feared he would ride away again. Osbehrt wanted to tell her that such a fear was foolish: Father could not ride off again, because Bruntaegl had been slain and now there was no horse to ride off on. But his eyes and his attention were drawn instead to the next row of mourners riding behind the bier.

There were two more Holbytla, one upon the right and one upon the left. Their clothes were bright and costly, and their grey cloaks seemed almost to shimmer as they rode. Yet it was not they who held Osbehrt’s eye, even as murmurs of Ring-bearers and Frodo Nine-Fingered began to ripple through the crowd nearby. He was looking at the tall Man who rode between them upon a horse larger than any Osbehrt had ever seen.

He, too, was bareheaded in respect for the dead, and he was clothed all in black: even unto his mail. Upon his chest, where Éomer King wore the White Horse, this man wore a White Tree stitched in white silk and silvery stitches too bright to be silver. Its blossoms were tiny gems, and atop it there was a crown like a winged helm. There were stars above that, and Osbehrt hurriedly counted them. Seven stars, all glittering. The man’s face was proud and noble, pale and solemn and yet with the same essential joy that sat upon the brow of the new King of the Mark. And for as long as he was able, Osbehrt stared at that fair and joyous face.

He scrunched up his eyes, and he bunched his lips into a puckered little ring, and he stared as hard as he could, because something about that face reminded him of the winter cottage in the little dell. He could not think why, and that made him stare all the harder. They were passing by now, and another row was coming: a figure in white upon a grey horse, and two – one lithe and one stocky – together upon the same steed. Osbehrt felt the angry burst of irritation of a child who has been presented with an unfinished story or a puzzle that cannot be solved.

Then something remarkable happened. Just as they were passing, just as the two fine ponies and the huge warhorse were stepping beyond Osbehrt and into Annis’s direct line of sight, one of the Halflings spoke. It was the Halfling on the tall Man’s left, between him and Osbehrt’s side of the road. And the tall Man turned to look at him, and he smiled.

Osbehrt’s hands flew to his mouth to keep the shout of amazement from escaping. He drummed from one foot to the other, unable to keep still. In the grass, Nyle stopped digging in his lapful of little blossoms and looked up to see what had so excited his brother. Annis didn’t notice: she was turned up to Father, whispering about the Holbytla. But Mamma did, and she put her hand on Osbehrt’s shoulder to calm him.

Instead, it only broke the dam behind which the cry had been roiling. ‘Mamma, that’s him!’ he exclaimed, pointing at the man in black. ‘That’s him, that’s my man! My man in the hay, Mamma! It is!’

She bent to hush him. People nearby were frowning their disapproval on the disruption. Annis turned to glare at Osbehrt, clearly mortified. Drawing near now were two beautiful ladies, one in grey and one in white, one dark and one golden, and they were flanked by two lords: the near one dark, and the far one with silvery hair. The shadow-haired lady turned her head to the sound, but Osbehrt hardly noticed her. He was twisted back over his hip, in part to look up at his mother and in part because by doing so he could still see the tall Man’s black cloak and free hair.

‘It’s him! Remember? The man in the hay! I found him, and he smiled, and then you said you’d whack him with the sickle?’ he babbled eagerly.

‘Be silent!’ Mamma hissed, dismayed. He could be heard at some distance now: folk were searching for the source of his voice. When Osbehrt opened his mouth again, he found himself suddenly up in the air, swinging onto his mother’s hip as she held his bottom with one arm and clamped the other hand over his mouth. Osbehrt wriggled, trying to writhe free, and succeeded in slipping his chin from her palm.

‘It is my man in the hay!’ he shouted indignantly. ‘His hair was all tumbly and tangled, and his face was dirty and now it’s not, but it is—’ 

He was cut off with a shrill mmph as Mamma covered his mouth again. This time she wasn’t about to let him slip. Her face was scarlet with embarrassment and anger.

‘Annis, mind Nyle!’ she hissed. Then, not waiting to see if she would be obeyed or even if she had been heard, she turned around and began to elbow through the crowd with Osbehrt bucking in an attempt to get free.

It was not as hard as one would have expected, for Mamma had freed up a space near the very front of the throng, and everybody was eager to budge up a little as someone filled it. In scarcely more than a few heartbeats they were back through the crowd and Mamma was striding across their little camp-kitchen to the tent. Now Osbehrt was livid. He was being pulled away from the procession, away from the spectacle he had waited for days and days to see. Yes, he had seen the Kings, the old one and the new one, and that was the main thing – but there were more and more people coming, and they all looked interesting! Hundreds of people, he thought. Not hundreds-and-hundreds like the people on either side of the road, but certainly at least two hundreds. He wanted to see them all!

He was so startled when Mamma’s hand left his mouth to whip aside the door-curtain that he did not immediately think to shout. They were inside and he was on his bottom on the rope bed before he knew what was happening. The bedframe broke down into four pieces so they could fit it in the wagon, and Father had strung the ropes good and tight and let Osbehrt and Nyle walk on them until they didn’t squeak. The mattress was filled with hay they had bought in fat bales from a hawker from a nearby farm. It was a good bed, and Osbehrt bounced a little as Mamma put him down.

He let out only a squawk that was not quite a protest before Mamma swooped down before him, anger burning across her face and one finger upraised to wag before his nose.

‘What do you mean, shouting and making a spectacle of yourself?’ she hissed. She still did not want to yell at him, even though they were hidden now, because you could hear things through the tent walls. Even now Osbehrt could hear the murmur of fascinated voices, free to remark upon the many fair and unusual folk now that the bier with Théoden King had passed on towards the city. ‘I told you, your father told you, we both told you to behave!’

His mother’s wrath stripped away Osbehrt’s defiance. He had not seen Mamma so angry since the winter Nyle had been born, when she had been pale and worried all the time and tearful and weepy much of the time and downright furious some of the time. She had been halfway between weepy and angry on the day Osbehrt had found the man in the hay, he remembered. That was why she had sent him and Annis outside: because Osbehrt had tried to pet Baby Nyle, and Baby Nyle had squawked and Mamma couldn’t bear it.

Yet though no longer defiant, Osbehrt was still defensive. ‘But Mamma!’ he protested in a tiny voice. He sounded like a mouse. Silly Annis had insisted his man was a mouse, too: he remembered that. A mouse in the hay, she had said. She’d been wrong. ‘Mamma, that man in the black mail—’

‘That man in the black mail is the King of Gondor!’ Mamma snapped breathily, still mindful of the volume of her voice. ‘He led the armies in the war and he fought the orcs at Helm’s Deep and he is a great man and a hero. What nonsense were you shouting at him? Shouting! Like some kind of wild man’s brat instead of the good little lad of the Mark I raised you up to be. And our dear King not hardly gone past on his funeral bier—I don’t know what came over you!’

‘But Mamma—’

‘Hush!’ She bit off the word quickly, her voice very clipped. Her legs were shaking and she whirled around to sit beside him on the bed. The ropes and the straw tick sagged towards her as she planted her elbows on her knees and drew one hand over her mouth. ‘Hush! Don’t you say a word to me, Osbehrt. Not one word! I’m so angry that I don’t… I don’t know what…’

Then she fell silent, her face buried in one hand while her other arm moved to hug her middle. She rocked to and fro, and her breath came in sharp, hurtful little hitches that made her back twitch as if with hiccoughs. Osbehrt sat silent, apologetic and dismayed but knowing that any disobedience (such as speech) would only make it worse.

He waited, while the noises outside grew steadily louder and merrier and the clop-clop of iron-shod horses went on and on. He waited until Mamma’s breath evened out and the cherry red flush left her cheeks and she stopped rocking. He waited until she let go of her middle and scrubbed her face in both hands and turned her head to look at him, still leaning far over her lap.

‘Well?’ she said. Now she did not sound angry, only tired and a little bemused. ‘Are you going to tell me why my good little boy was screaming after the King of Gondor?’

‘I wasn’t screaming,’ Osbehrt muttered, twisting the hem of this tunic in both his hands and kicking one dangling foot so that it swung.

‘What’s that?’ Mamma prompted in the voice she used when she wanted to coax them to speak up clearly.

‘I didn’t scream, I was shouting,’ he said, louder but now sullen. ‘A scream’s a scared noise, and a shout’s a happy one.’

‘I see,’ Mamma exhaled. She pursed her lips, now gone pale, and she blinked twice before speaking again. ‘Why did you shout, then?’

‘Because he’s my friend!’ said Osbehrt. ‘That man in black, he’s my friend.’

‘The King of Gondor,’ Mama said, very slowly; ‘is your friend.’

Osbehrt nodded. ‘He’s my man in the hay,’ he said. ‘I wasn’t sure about it ‘til he smiled, but it’s him all right.’

‘Man in the hay?’ echoed Mamma, looking so perplexed that she was almost in tears.

‘You know!’ Osbehrt said exasperatedly, thumping the backs of both hands into his lap, palms upward in helpless vexation. Hadn’t she been listening? ‘The man in the hay. The one who didn’t steal the hens.’

Mamma’s brow furrowed still more deeply, and then her eyes and mouth widened into three round rings. ‘The wild man!’ she breathed, her words strained. ‘The wild man we caught trying to sleep in our hay the winter when Nyle was born.’

‘Yes!’ Osbehrt said triumphantly. ‘My man in the hay!’

A shaky, half-hysterical laugh came from Mamma’s throat. ‘Oh, child, that was just some strange traveller who thought our feed would make a nice bed: he wasn’t anybody at all. He certainly wasn’t the King of Gondor.’

Osbehrt scowled. Being laughed at was far worse than being scolded. It made him feel like a baby: like Nyle. ‘It’s him. I know it,’ he muttered.

Mamma laughed again, more heartily this time, and smoothed his hair. When her hand cupped the back of his head she drew him to her and kissed his brow. ‘You’ve always had a lively imagination, my little man,’ she said fondly. ‘Look at you, trying to make a campfire tale out of one peculiar afternoon when you weren’t even as big as your brother is now!’

‘But he is my man in the hay!’ Osbehrt protested. He knew he was beaten, though. Grown folk never believed you once they started to laugh. He frowned down into his lap as his mother hugged him closer and kissed him again, this time on the cheek. ‘He is. I know it.’

lar

That was still his firm position two days later, but Osbehrt no longer voiced it. Father had only chuckled and said what a lively imagination he had: he’d make a storyteller one day, maybe. Annis laughed uproariously and went around announcing to her new friends that her brother thought he knew a King! Mamma humoured him politely, but he could see she was only petting. Only Nyle believed him, and listened with round eyes and rapt attention when Osbehrt related the story in whispers while everyone else was singing about the cooking fires or dancing in the soft green grass between the tents.

It was mid-afternoon, and most folk were resting. Théoden King would be buried upon the morrow, and tonight all the people would drink the funeral ale to speed him on his way. Heavy wagons laden with huge casks had already been sent out of the city, and tables set up where the new King’s men would serve out the drink. It was by order of Éomer King that all the people were to remember and to celebrate the great deeds of his mother’s brother, to mourn his dying and to rejoice in his victory. Mamma said there would be revelry until the dawning, and she had gone to lie down for a nap with Nyle.

Annis, always eager to be the obedient eldest, was also resting in the little box-bed the children shared. She would be too big for it soon, and then Father would have to build another frame bed instead. Osbehrt didn’t like that idea. He liked the little bed, where the three of them curled up cosily even on the coldest nights. But nobody asked his opinion, just as nobody believed him about his man in the hay.

He was sitting by the ashes of the cooking fire, legs crossed, and he was drawing in the dirt with a stick. Around the ring of stones that grew fiercely hot when the flames danced in their middle, the grass was scorched away to the stubble, and the earth was soft and mealy. It made a good place to draw. Osbehrt was drawing the hay rick, fat and rounded, and the little cottage and the henhouse. They stayed there every winter now, and Father had made it up very nicely. A couple of other families had built their own cots nearby, and so there were friends to play with now. But that winter it had been a very shabby, lonely place and often cold, too.

The visit from the man in the hay was one of Osbehrt’s happiest memories of that winter. It had been so unexpected, coming around the great mound of hay to see him with his shaggy hair and his strange, dirty clothes and those big boots. For a moment Osbehrt had been scared, but just for a moment because then the man had smiled, and he had a wonderful, welcoming, kindly smile. Then Annis hadn’t believed him, which was vexing, but Osbehrt had been proved right, which was marvelous. And afterwards, when Annis and Mamma saw about the chickens, they had all puzzled over it together and laughed. When Father came in with the kine, they had all laughed again. Even toothless little Nyle had smiled, his very, very first smile. All because of the man in the hay.

The crunch of booted feet made Osbehrt look up. Two tall men stood on the other side of the camp hearth, near the trestles and board that served the family as a table. One was dressed in black, and one was dressed in bright blue. They had high helms, one with wings on either side of it and the other with golden tracings and long blue plumes. They were grave looking men, and they regarded him pensively.

Then the one in blue looked at the one in black, no longer grave but somewhat chagrined. He shrugged his shoulder, and he said something in a tongue Osbehrt did not know. The one in black grimaced, nodded, and then squatted down to peer at the boy.

‘Are you called Osbehrt?’ he asked. His words were clumsy and sort of muddled about the edges, as if he didn’t usually talk like the people of the Mark.

‘Yes…’ Osbehrt said warily, looking from the crouching man to the standing one. The man in black still looked very grave, but the one in blue was smiling.

‘And a sister called Annis?’ asked the man ineptly.

Osbehrt frowned, trying to find the question in what seemed like a mere statement of fact. Then he heard more footsteps, this time behind him, and his father spoke.

‘This is my son,’ he said. ‘What business have you speaking to him?’

The man in black stood up. ‘Knights, we are, of Gondor,’ he said. ‘A boy, Osbehrt. His sister, Annis.’

But Father spoke the tongue of the men of Gondor, and he used it now. He made a statement, and then thrust out his chin proudly and put his left hand upon the hilts of his sword – the wrong hand to draw it with, but the correct hand to caress the pommel in boast. The blue man’s grin broadened. He said something, and then he and Father clasped hands and clapped one another on the shoulder. Then the man in black launched into a lengthy speech that left Osbehrt befuddled and his father increasingly wary.

Father said something else, and the man in blue spoke. Then he asked a question, looking as if he had just been asked to take some terrible risk in fording a stream. The man in black shook his head solemnly.

Then Father spoke hurriedly to the men. The one in blue shrugged again and nodded, and Father bent and seized Osbehrt’s arm. Almost before he could scramble to his feet, Father was hauling him away from the men and into the tent. He thrust aside the curtain that separated the beds from the area where they took visitors or ate on rainy days.

Mamma’s eyelids fluttered at the sound, and she swallowed sleepily. She was lying curled on top of the bedclothes, for the day was hot, and she had Nyle curled in against her nice, plump stomach. Her hair was loose and she smiled dreamily up at her husband before understanding his expression and sitting up with a start.

‘What is it? What’s wrong?’ she asked.

‘There are two men here,’ he said grimly. His hold on Osbehrt’s arm had changed from imperious to possessive. His eyes darted to Annis, wide awake and sitting up in the trundle bed, and there was a fire of protectiveness in him. ‘They are knights of Gondor. One, from Dol Amroth far away, was unhorsed in the first battle. We marched together, though we did not know one another.’

That must have been the man in blue, Osbehrt thought. It was on the tip of his tongue to ask what the men wanted when his mother did it for him.

‘They were sent to find a family from Eastemnet, with a daughter called Annis and a son called Osbehrt, and another son also,’ said Father flatly. ‘They have been moving through the camps, asking, and some of the folk directed them to us. They are here to bring us to the Golden Hall.’

‘What?’ Mamma gasped. ‘Why?’ She was sitting up now, clutching a half-asleep Nyle to her. He mumbled something unintelligible and plucked at the front of her kirtle. Mamma hushed him absently and stroked his hair.

‘It seems we are wanted by their Lord,’ Father managed. His voice was very tight, and his lips had gone white. ‘All of us, even the children.’

‘But why? What have we done?’ Now Mamma was pale, her free hand fluttering. She put her feet upon the floor and made Nyle sit up on the bed. He scrubbed at his eyes, flummoxed but uncomplaining in his little-boy way.

‘I do not know,’ said Father hoarsely. ‘Perhaps Osbehrt’s outburst…’

Mamma’s eyes grew large as hen’s eggs, and her hand flew to her throat. ‘You don’t think he could have offended their King!’ she cried, her voice a hoarse whisper of horror. ‘They won’t… won’t arrest you?’

‘I do not know,’ Father said again. Now his face was hard, almost angry-looking, but the hand that held Osbehrt was shaking. ‘They are outside now: we are to come at once. Quickly! Put right your hair. Annis, get up. Osbehrt…’

He looked down at his son, took him by the shoulders and turned him, and brushed off the seat of his trousers and the tail of his tunic. Then suddenly Father was on his knees and hugging Osbehrt tightly to him.

‘It isn’t your fault,’ he whispered, squeezing his son nearer still. He stroked his hair like Mamma so often did, smoothing down the straw-coloured curls. ‘These great Lords and their tempers… it isn’t your fault.’

Osbehrt didn’t feel that way, as Mamma hurriedly made herself presentable and put a fresh smock on Nyle; as Annis combed her hair and asked anxious questions that were met with curt replies; as Father took off his old comfortable tunic and drew on his new, stiff one. He belted his sword over it, too, and this time with grim determination instead of pride. Whatever was happening, Osbehrt thought as they stepped out to huddle before the tent door, it was most assuredly his fault. He had shouted at the King of Gondor, and now these men were coming to take them away.

The man in blue held out his hands to Mamma, who had Nyle in her arms. He said something that only Father could understand, but Mamma did not need words to know what he wanted. Fearfully she shook her head and hugged her youngest child closer. Annis was holding onto Mamma’s wide woven girdle as she had not done in years – not, Osbehrt thought with a sickening lurch of his stomach, since the day she had come out so bravely to wave the poker at the man in the hay. Father stood very stiffly.

The knight smiled and made a deprecating gesture. Then his countryman said something firm and very brief, and they started to walk. For a moment not one of the family moved. Then Father reached and took hold of Osbehrt’s hand. He put his other palm in the small of Mamma’s back, drawing her forward in a tiny, lurching step.

‘Come,’ he said. His voice was hoarse but determined. ‘Whatever it is, at least we’re together.’

Osbehrt was a good walker. A boy had to be, growing up among the travelling herdsmen. He could walk five leagues in a day and hardly even be tired when camp was made – well, not tired enough to fall asleep straight off before supper was ready, anyhow. The walk up the hill and through the city of Edoras was not more than four miles, but it was the longest walk he had ever taken in his life.

No one said anything: not Father, not Mother, not the man in black, not Annis (which was extraordinary) or even Nyle. Only the knight in blue spoke a couple of times; once when they climbed up onto the road, and once at the city gate. As they went, people stared after them. At first it was folk they knew: herdsmen from their own band, or men who had ridden with Father under Elfhelm the Marshal, or new acquaintances they had made since setting up camp. Then the watchers were people who did not understand why a family of their own sort was being led off by two tall, armed men with dark hair and strange voices. Then, in the city itself, curious faces peeked out of windows and doorways, took in the sight, and moved on to other business. City folk were too busy to be interested for long.

Osbehrt had never been in a city before, and he had heard stories of Edoras all his life. He wanted to look around and take in all the marvelous sights and sounds and the new smells (not all of them marvelous, though some certainly were). But he could not. He could only trot along beside his father, stalwartly keeping pace and trying not to cry. They were in trouble. He had brought trouble on them all. It was all his fault.

At last they reached it: the high Golden Hall of the Meduseld. Now they stopped, all four of them. Father and Mamma and Annis and Osbehrt froze in their tracks, unable to go any further. They stared in awe at the sight before them. Even Nyle stared, his fingers in his mouth and his other hand curled around Mamma’s arm. She hitched him higher on her hip, but it was just a reflex. She was as petrified as the rest of them, awestruck by the splendour of the Hall of the King.

There was a guard before the doors, and he was a man of the Mark. Osbehrt almost wanted to run to him, weeping with gladness, and to beg him for help. Surely a good man of the Mark would not let strangers take away a family of their own folk to face some terrible foreign Lord, would he?

But the guard exchanged a few curt words with Father, and then took his sword. He took Mamma’s knife with the smooth bone handle, too. It was just a knife for cooking and butchering and things, but it was as long as her forearm and she always carried it in a sheath on her hip. Father had to take Nyle so that she could remove it. When she handed it to the man her hands were shaking as if she had a palsy.

‘Fret not, lady,’ said the guard. ‘I learned my craft from the noblest doorwarden Edoras has ever known. I shall suffer no man to touch your treasure.’

Then he ushered them through. Father’s hand quaked briefly as the doors swung wide, but he tightened his hold on Osbehrt’s and marched forward with his shoulders squared bravely and his head held high. He drew Mamma close, and Annis nudged in nearer to her mother’s leg, and together they walked into the cool shade of the hall.

The sunlight fell in long shafts from high windows in the westward wall, casting the place in curious one-sided shadows. Many pillars rose to either side, shooting upward towards the great roof high above. Osbehrt followed these with his eyes, awed, but he felt the tug of his father’s hand and realized he had stopped walking. After that he kept his gaze fixed on the floor, which was set with stones of many colours carven with letters and shapes.

‘Look at the weavings!’ Annis breathed, her own fright momentarily forgotten. But Mamma hushed her, and they went on.

They walked past a long hearth set in the middle of the hall, as if this were any landholder’s lodge. There was a fire burning, but it was banked with ashes for its heat was little needed in these summer days. Osbehrt looked up, meaning to ask his father why the King should have so ordinary a thing in his hall, and that was when he saw the dais.

There was a high gilded seat set upon it, but it could barely be seen. Nor could the carven wooden chair draped with a swath of white satin that had been set beside it. For before each of these stood a man: both tall, both majestic, both clad in bright garments with joy upon their brows. One was Éomer King, Osbehrt saw at once, and he was too marveled to be frightened. The other was the great King of Gondor, no longer wearing mail or his black raiment.

They had all stopped, but the two knights were behind them and they had to go on. Father swallowed hard as he started forward, approaching the throne and the two Kings. There were other people nearby, Osbehrt saw. The lady in grey stood near the King of Gondor, only today she was clad in violet like a maiden on Mayday morning. Beside Éomer King stood a lady proud and lovely: a lady of the Mark and so like the King that Osbehrt did not need to be told that this was the Lady Éowyn his sister.

Off to one side, in the cool comfort of the shadows, there were chairs and couches gathered together, and there many fair folk were sitting and sipping of wine and tasting of bright fruits laid out on golden plates. They had been talking quietly together in words Osbehrt did not understand, but they fell silent as the little family drew near, watchful.

It was Éomer King who spoke first. ‘These are the children, Osbehrt and Annis?’ he asked. The knight in black answered clumsily in the affirmative. Then the King looked at Osbehrt’s father. ‘What is your name, good herdsman?’ he asked.

Father’s lips parted, but no sound issued forth. He was as pale as the snow upon the high mountains, and now even his grip upon Osbehrt could not disguise the tremor in his hand. ‘T-Tolan, Lord King,’ he said hoarsely, his voice carried high and far by the sedate air of the hall. ‘Tolan son of Toran, a loyal servant of the House of Éorl.’

The King nodded, as if he had expected this. ‘Come nearer, Tolan,’ he said, beckoning. ‘Bring your children and your fair lady wife.’

Osbehrt was the first to step forward. The King’s voice was kind, and beside him the tall, tall dark-haired King of Gondor was smiling. Osbehrt knew that smile. He knew it, and now he was not afraid at all.

But Father was. Father grabbed his shoulder, staying him, and then slid free of Mamma’s waist. He took two long running steps forward, and cast himself to his knees, palms upon the floor and head bowed low.

‘Lord King, Lord King have mercy!’ he cried. ‘Whatever cause these great Lords have for wrath, have mercy upon one who rode in your name, who followed you on foot when his mount was cut from under him. Let my family go from this place, my King, and keep me in their stead!’

Mamma made a high, frightened sound, and Annis whimpered. Nyle was now sucking his fingers so forcefully that the squelch of his spittle could be heard. Osbehrt was watching the young, golden King as his face furrowed in confusion and dismay. His sister looked utterly taken aback, and at his other side the King of Gondor was stepping forward. The lady at his side was the only one who did not seem astonished by Father’s outcry. Her face was tender and just a little sad.

The clatter of costly boots on stone rang out as the King of Gondor hastened down the dais steps. He wore a mantle of some light and gauzy cloth, and it billowed behind him as he dropped to one knee and laid his hands upon Father’s prostrate shoulders. Father flinched.

‘Do not speak of wrath, Tolan son of Toran!’ the King of Gondor said. Osbehrt nearly clapped his hands, for he knew now without any doubt that it was his friend. His voice was the same, though not so strained, and for all his dark hair he knew their speech. ‘Not one among us is wroth with you, and never with your family.’ When Father did not move, he looked back over his shoulder at Éomer King, shaking his head ever so slightly. ‘Not once…’ he breathed, then without even a pause he changed to another tongue to finish his sentence.

The young King, Osbehrt’s King, brave Éomer of the Mark, said something in reply. He moved down onto the first step of the dais. ‘Rise, Tolan son of Toran,’ he said.  'No harm will come to you in my hall, nor to any of your blood. You are my good and loyal subject. You have not been brought here to meet your doom.’

Father’s breath caught and he raised his head to look at his King. Then it was as if he had only just noticed the man kneeling beside him, long fingers still closed about his shoulders. He straightened a little, shying away with a tiny noise of dismay. The dark King drew back his hands gently, and the kindest of smiles was on his face.

‘Forgive me,’ he said, as humbly as an old friend trying to mend a fresh hurt. He spoke their tongue perfectly, with no hesitation and no strange accent. ‘I did not expect my summons to cause you fear. I thought I was known to you, and that you would understand my wish to thank you.’

‘K-Known to me, Lord?’ Father whispered, tense as a hound still expecting the whip. ‘I know you only as the one who sailed the Black Ships to our aid, who led us in desperate battle to great victory. What cause have you to thank me?’

‘Your service would be cause enough,’ said the King of Gondor. ‘Had I but time, each man who fought upon that field or marched that desperate road would have his thanks from my own lips. Yet this is a matter somewhat more particular, and in sooth it was not you I wished to thank so much as your family.’

Father sat up far enough that his palms were no longer on the floor. He drew his arms in across his stomach, loose but defensive. He looked back at Mamma, who was shaking her head like one startled from a dream. ‘My family…’ Father breathed.

Then at last the King of Gondor looked at Osbehrt, his eyes with their peculiar stormy colour merry. His smile grew broad, no longer gentle so much as gleeful. ‘Do you not remember me, Master Osbehrt?’ he asked. ‘You knew me two days past.’

His one hand rested upon his upraised knee. The other he held out in welcome. Osbehrt gave out a whoop of triumph and ran to him, taking a little leap to fling his arms about the man’s neck. He felt a strong hand settle firmly upon his back.

‘I knew it was you! I knew it, I knew!’ Osbehrt sang out. ‘I told them. They didn’t believe me, but I knew!’

He drew back out of the embrace, a little abashed. His parents were gawking at him, and Annis had abandoned her desperate hold on their mother’s girdle. She was frowning thoughtfully, unable to choose between excitement and perturbation.

The man in the hay – now the King in black, Osbehrt thought, except that he wasn’t wearing black now and what did that mean he should be called, then? – was still smiling down at him.

‘As I knew when I heard your call,’ he said. His eyes twinkled conspiratorially. ‘Did your mother scold you fiercely for raising your voice on such a solemn day?’

Osbehrt was about to confirm that indeed she had, but his mother took a timid step forward. ‘My Lord…’ she said feebly.

The King in the Hay turned his eyes upon hers, and they were once more very gentle. ‘It seems I am ever fated to frighten you, lady,’ he said softly. ‘I must ask your forgiveness in this.’

‘I… I don’t understand,’ Mamma protested, shaking her head fervently. ‘I can’t understand.’

‘I don’t understand it myself,’ said Éomer King, coming down to the level of the hall floor and crossing his arms as he regarded the other great Lord. He spoke like a man challenging his brother for an explanation. ‘You promised you would give us the tale when we had your champions before us. Make good thine oath, Wingfoot, and be swift!’

‘Have you a tale for Éomer King, Osbehrt?’ asked the King in the Hay, affable and prompting at once.

Osbehrt was stricken dumb. It was one thing to run to his old friend, whose identity he had been professing for days. It was quite another to speak to his King, who towered so high above him in his splendour, with his throne behind him and his mighty sword upon his hip. He looked up at Éomer King, and his heart hammered within him.

Then there was a slap of soft shoes coming near, and a determined voice said; ‘He was in our hay. Nyle was just a babe, and we got turned out to play, and Osbehrt wandered off – which he was not meant to do! – and he came back ‘round the rick telling tales of a man in the hay.’

The King of the Mark was looking at her now, both amused and still a little perplexed. ‘You would be Annis,’ he said cautiously.

‘Yes,’ she said stoutly, coming still nearer. ‘We went in because it was cold, and then we heard a yelp, like a cat with a pulled tail. Mamma told us to stay, and she went out, and there he was!’

She pointed at the smiling King of Gondor. Father was up on his knees properly now, and he reached for her, trying to quiet her without actually speaking before the two great Lords. Osbehrt noticed that everyone in the small group of people to the side was watching also. Most seemed to be trying to hold back laughter, but a few were not. One man in blue, with long dark hair flecked with grey, looked still more bewildered than Éomer King. Another man was merely sitting, observing the scene with the saddest eyes that Osbehrt had ever seen. He was such a young man, with long dark hair and a slender form, and yet his sad, sad eyes made him look terribly old.

Annis was continuing with the story, explaining how Mamma had challenged the man with the scythe, and she with the poker, and when she came to the part about Osbehrt coming out with baby Nyle in his arms, there was a general chuckle of amusment and Éomer King threw back his head and laughed so that the rafters rang with mirth.

‘You have a stout heart, Osbehrt son of Tolan,’ he applauded. Then he frowned at his friend. ‘Where were your other companions? Surely an Elf and a Dwarf would have proved more remarkable than a wild man, however enamoured of their hay.’

The dark-haired king shook his head. He moved as if to rise, but sat down upon the steps instead, resting his arms upon his knees. Something about this posture seemed to put Father at greater ease than all the kind reassurances in the world, for he relaxed out of his rigid pose and crossed his own legs. From the dais the Lady Éowyn gestured towards Mamma, and out of the shadows a servant appeared, carrying a low-backed chair with carven arms. He set it down, bowed and retreated.

Mamma did not move. She was still clutching Nyle to her with her eyes enormous in their astonishment and her face very pale. There was a rustling of rich cloth as Éomer King sat down upon the step beside the other King. So many Kings, Osbehrt thought dizzily.

‘Please sit, lady,’ said the King in the Hay, indicating the chair and smiling at Mamma.

Her lips moved wordlessly, and then there was a whisper of silk. The lady in the violet gown moved forward, swiftly but so smoothly that she almost seemed to float. She laid her hand gently upon Mamma’s arm and led her to the chair, lending her palm to steady Nyle as Mamma sat. Not a word did she say, but the tender care in her eyes spoke eloquently enough. A tiny, timid smile touched Mamma’s lips, and it was reciprocated radiantly by the beautiful lady.

The King in the Hay looked around at them, a loose storyteller’s ring about him. Annis planted herself down upon the floor where she stood, and the King nodded approvingly.

‘It was not during my travels with Legolas and Gimli, my friend, but some two winters past,’ he said. ‘I was on a desperate errand, pressing northward in great haste, and I was weary and in search of shelter. I came upon a little dell wherein stood a cottage I took to be deserted. A hay rick makes a fine bedchamber in the Wild, and I was tempted down into the dooryard.’

Éomer King leaned back a little, quizzical brows arched. Behind him his sister had now drawn near, listening intently. The folk with the golden dishes were settling quietly amongst themselves. Osbehrt supposed most of them did not speak the language of the Riddermark. Only the sad young man seemed to be listening, no less sorrowful than before. He looked like one who was attending to some favourite storyteller, knowing this is to be the last time he would speak.

‘No sooner had I drawn near than I saw my mistake,’ said the King in the Hay. He fixed apologetic eyes upon Father. ‘What I had taken for an abandoned cot was not. No smoke in the chimney, but the roof was patched drum-tight. Well-tended tools stood nigh; a clean apron; the scent of healthy swine. I was in the first paces of a quiet retreat when these fair young folk came out.’ He gestured to Osbehrt and Annis. ‘All the rest is much as this eloquent young lady has told you, save that when Osbehrt and his brother – what is your name, young warrior? Your sister has said it, and I have forgotten.’

‘Nyle,’ the little boy said. He was leaning forward in Mamma’s lap now, listening intently. The fingers had left his mouth, though his chin was still wet.

‘Nyle,’ the King repeated. ‘When Osbehrt came out with Nyle, their gracious mother gave me leave to go in peace. In her goodness, she bade me fill my skins at her well, for the nearby stream was foul.’ He twisted as he met Éomer King’s eyes very gravely. ‘Saruman’s work, unless I miss my guess.’

The name seemed known to some in the shaded assembly, for several pairs of eyes moved again to the foot of the dais. One of these was the golden-haired lady in white whom Osbehrt had seen in the procession into Edoras. Her eyes flashed almost fiercely.

‘I do not understand, my Lord,’ murmured Father. He was hanging his head, humble, but the terror was long fled from his limbs and his voice. ‘I was told of the encounter, of course, but the stranger was a… well…’

‘A vagabond?’ asked the King in the Hay. His eyes sparkled as if he was about to burst into uproarious laughter. ‘So I was, wending my way North with short commons and too little sleep. Ragged, dirty, thoroughly disreputable to look upon…’

He looked at Mamma as he said this, and she flushed crimson, averting his eyes from his and shying away from the beautiful lady who stood near her.

‘Do not be abashed, dear lady,’ the King said warmly. ‘You dealt fairly with me, and I am thankful. You took me at my word, and I am honoured. You aided me on my journey, and in doing so wrought a far greater good than you could have known.’

The truth and gravity in his voice made Osbehrt feel very solemn, as if listening to one of the deep, funerary songs that were sung now in the last hour before slumber. Yet he was joyful, too, for he could see that his friend was joyful. And he was five, and rather cheeky. ‘Did I wrought a great good also?’ he asked.

The King laughed softly and reached to tap him under the chin with a crooked forefinger. ‘Indeed you did,’ he said; ‘perhaps you most of all. I was in dire need of a little mirth that day, and you provided it selflessly.’

Osbehrt puffed out his chest a little. Annis bristled with a big sister’s envy.

‘Why didn’t you take the chickens?’ she asked.

Momma inhaled sharply, horrified. Father looked confused. Osbehrt, still glowing with pride, graciously allowed his sister to have her moment of attention from the King.

‘Your chickens?’ he echoed. For the first time since Father had flung himself upon the floor at his feet, it was the King in the Hay who looked confounded. ‘I would have blackened my name with shame if I had taken your chickens, after your lady mother gave freely of the gift of water. Why should you ask such a thing?’

‘The latch was broken,’ said Annis. ‘Somebody fixed it with a bit of wire: Mamma said so the foxes wouldn’t get in. But she was sure you took a chicken when you did it, too. Save then we counted, and every one was there!’

Mamma looked as if she wished to sink into the floor with mortification. Father was horrified. Osbehrt didn’t understand why. After all, it had been the King who had fixed the latch, hadn’t it?

It seemed it had, for he sighed and shook his head, chagrined and amused at once. ‘I see. Of course you would suspect such a ruffian of chicken-snatching,’ he said. ‘You were quite right to count them. No, I was not after your chickens, nor their eggs. The latch was broken through my carelessness, and I mended it as best I could.’

Beside him, Éomer King was shaking. For a moment Osbehrt wondered if he, like Father and Mamma, was making this out to be some sort of calamity. Then he realized that the young King was laughing uncontrollably and trying to keep silent while he did it. His cheeks were rosy, his lips pressed together, his shoulders quaking. Behind him, his sister was trying to suppress a broad grin. Osbehrt realized with surprise that they were just like Annis and him: sharing a private joke even when no one else was laughing.

For the first time, the lady in the violet gown looked puzzled. Osbehrt could tell she did not know their speech, but he thought she knew the story. Now she seemed lost.

The King in the Hay unfolded his long legs and rose smoothly, lithe as a strong young horse. Father scrambled to rise with him, hurriedly motioning for the children to do the same. Éomer King tried to rise, then bent over his knees and clutched at his ribs. With an exasperated little pursing of her lips, the Lady Éowyn stepped around him and offered both hands to haul him to his feet.

The King of Gondor gave a sign, and a servant appeared bearing a tray upon which were set four silver cups. Two were large, the others small. Just right for little hands, Osbehrt thought eagerly. Then he coloured a bit himself. That was a greedy thing to think, wasn’t it?

‘What is your name, lady?’ asked the King, smiling at Mamma. She had just risen, and she was trying to straighten her skirts with Nyle still on her hip. She froze at his words and looked at him like a doe about to flee for cover.

‘Wilonë, Lord,’ she whispered. ‘Wilonë, wife of Tolan.’

‘Wilonë, wife of Tolan,’ the King in the Hay repeated ceremoniously, taking one of the tall goblets from the salver. ‘You gave me leave to pass unharried through your land, when many would have feared me. You gave me the gift of water, when I could make no repayment. Now the Shadow has been conquered, and the time has come for recompense to be given where it may be. Accept from my hand this gift of wine, the fruit of my land and the work of my people.’

He gave Mamma the goblet, and handed the other to Father. They took them, bereft of words. Then the King took both of the smaller cups and gave them to Annis and Osbehrt. Inside was a little measure of wine, dark as jewels. It smelled sweet and summery, and Osbehrt drank it at once. He was the first one to do so, but Annis followed. Then Mamma sipped of hers. Last of all was Father.

‘The casks shall be brought to your camping-place this evening,’ said the King. ‘For the children I have other gifts.’

A basket was brought, and from it he took a sword and shield. They were carved of wood, beautifully tooled in the style of the weapons of the Riders of the Mark. Upon the circular boss of the shield was carved the Tree that the King had worn on his tabard in the procession. Osbehrt held his breath, not daring to hope such things were for him.

‘Your father fought valiantly at my calling, Osbehrt son of Tolan,’ said the King in the Hay. ‘When you make use of these among your comrades, remember his courage.’

He reached into the basket again, and brought out a knife in a crimson leather sheath. It was the same sort of knife that Mamma carried, but shorter: a grown woman’s knife, in all but size. The handle was of silver.

‘Annis, daughter of Wilonë,’ he said; ‘you stood forth to defend your home armed with only a fire-tool. Now peace is come: put this to some gentler use.’

Annis found her voice where Osbehrt had not. ‘Thank you! Oh, I thank you!’ she gasped, clutching her gift. The King smiled at her, and then his eyes shifted to the right, where Éomer King and his sister stood shoulder to shoulder. He did not wink, but something in the curl of his lip had the feeling of a wink.

Then he reached again into the basket. The lady in violet had stepped from the circle; she was now amid the couches and the quiet watching folk, bent and searching for something.

‘And Nyle,’ said the King in the Hay, tucking his head a little to grin at the boy. ‘Horses I know you must have aplenty, but I suspect you do not possess an Oliphant. Your father can tell you a tale of such creatures, no doubt.’

He gave Nyle a carven wooden animal of some sort, intricately painted and just the right size to ride with his three wooden horses. Nyle took it, looked at it, and hugged it to him jealously.

Now Éomer King spoke. He had managed to school his laughter, and had been watching the gift-giving thoughtfully. ‘Tolan son of Toran,’ he said. Father stiffened and looked at him, still not quite believing all that he had seen and heard. ‘Your mount was cut beneath you on the Pelennor, you said, and still you marched eastward with us?’

‘Yes, Lord King,’ said Father throatily. ‘I should have followed you to the fiery mountain, if that had been your command.’

‘Let us all give thanks that such trials were spared us,’ said Éomer King, the words almost a prayer. Then he studied Father’s face. ‘Have you replaced your loyal mount?’

Father cast down his eyes, ashamed. It was a terrible thing, not to own a horse. Only the poorest households in the Mark did not have at least one. ‘Sire, I am a man of humble means…’ Father mumbled.

‘For your service, and for the hospitality your house has offered to my friend and greatest ally, Elessar, King of Gondor, you shall be furnished with a breeding pair from my own herds,’ Éomer King proclaimed. ‘My Master of Horse will take you to make your choice. Only the Mearas do I reserve, out of ancient custom.’

‘My Lord… sire…’ Father stammered, raising his eyes in disbelief and gratitude. It was a princely gift, and Osbehrt wanted to laugh for joy. Two horses! And the toys, and Annis’s knife, and wine from the King of Gondor: why, they were wealthy!’

The lady in the violet gown was back. She had something in her arms: cloth, neatly folded. She approached the King in the Hay, and she whispered something in his ear before bending her head to receive. He spoke softly, and she listened with a studious look in her eyes. Then she came to Mamma and shook out the cloth. It was a beautiful shawl, all of silk and broidered with trees and beasts and birds of many colours. They seemed to dance across the shimmering cloth. Annis gasped and Osbehrt gaped. With a smooth sweeping motion, the lady lay the shawl about Mamma’s shoulders, tucking it under her arm where she held Nyle.

Then in the language of the Mark, her syllables smooth and her accent flawless, the lady who did not understand their speech said; ‘For the new babe, dear lady.’

The tears glittered in Mamma’s eyes, but she was smiling.

metta

Appendix E: Such a Friend

Maytime was glorious in that glad year when Sauron was cast down and the King came again. Ever after, Faramir son of Denethor of the House of Mardil remembered the long days of glorious sunlight, the nights beneath the glittering firmament, and the joy that walked so freely through the stony byways of the city he had already begun to think of as Minas Anor. It was simpler to forget, as the years went on and the golden reign of Envinyatar unfolded, the abashed unease that was his steadfast companion in those earliest days.

Neither awe nor earnest love could create between the Steward and the King the sort of trust and amity for which Faramir yearned. He could see it between the King and his companions: the Elf and the Dwarf who had travelled so far with him, and of course the Periannath. In a loftier way, rich with dignity upon both sides, Elessar and Mithrandir share a like bond. That was natural, for they had known one another for years uncounted and had shared in many long and bitter labours. Yet it was the friendships that the King had forged with the young King of Rohan and the Prince of Dol Amroth that gave Faramir hope that he too might achieve such a thing.

True, his uncle and Éomer King had ridden with the King to battle, and had dwelt with him in the glad days upon the field of Cormallen. Doubtless that had worked to cement the bonds of camaraderie and respect with a swiftness scarcely to be thought of in less tumultuous times. Yet Faramir hoped, he dared to hope, that he would one day share the King's confidence as Imrahil now did.

He was uncertain how to approach Elessar. The hale lord who appeared scant years older than the Steward's departed brother was in truth well-nigh of an age with Faramir's father. In him the blood of Númenor flowed pure, and his carriage and his majesty reflected that. That he had recalled Faramir from the consuming darkness of the Nazgûl was cause enough for hallowed regard. His words of grace and forgiveness before the battle-scarred City Gate had honoured and humbled Faramir still more.

After his father's transgressions and Denethor's traitorous imprecations against the King, it had seemed the only thing Faramir could do with honour was to yield up the White Rod. Indeed it would have been fitting in any case, for with the King come again what need was there for a Steward? Yet the King had laid the token of the office once more in Faramir's hands, and had bestowed upon him and upon his heirs the trust and privilege that had belonged to his long forefathers: to serve as Steward to a living King. And rising up, Faramir had heralded the return of the King before all the people of the City.

The pride and glory of that moment shone bright as bright in Faramir's heart upon the fourth day as it had in that moment. Still he longed, for all he knew it was naught but greed on his part, for friendship. Time would doubtless cure his awkwardness in the presence of his King, but he was as impatient as he was greedy. The thought was in his mind when he sat near the King at board in the Merethrond, listening to his talk and his merry laughter. It intruded upon Faramir's focus in the Hall of Kings, when Elessar would ease his imposing splendour with a beneficent smile to some supplicant or captive of war. If he could offer kindness even to the defeated Easterlings and the surrendering Haradrim, surely he would not take amiss an overture of friendship from his loyal servant and Steward – if only Faramir could work himself up to making one.

After that morning's long series of audiences, the King withdrew from the throne to meet with his Councillors. He had for the present retained all of Denethor's Council, easing both the transition of power and the qualms of the City's elite, and he had taken on others as well. There was Mithrandir, of course: a choice of which Faramir heartily approved and which his father would have just as ardently condemned. One of the master shipwrights from Pelargir was also elevated, that he might consult on the restoration of the Harlond and of Gondor's more distant waterways . The two sons of Elrond sat in the Council chamber also, most often silent but ever listening, and there was one of the King's own men: a member of the Grey Company, tall and weatherbeaten and grave. With him, too, Elessar shared an abiding affection as well as some hidden sorrow that Faramir saw but could not rightly read.

It was this Dúnadan who lingered after the Council dispersed, conferring with the King in hushed tones by one of the high casements. Faramir had half-hoped to do so himself, and he was turning away in discouraged silence when the Ranger clasped the King's arm briefly and strode from the room. Faramir hesitated near the threshold, wavering. Ere his courage could desert him entirely, Elessar spoke.

'Faramir.' He uttered the name with a warmth that reminded its owner of the moment of purest peace when he had awakened to see his King at his bedside. 'Will you tarry a while and speak with me?'

'Gladly, sire,' said Faramir, hoping he did not speak too swiftly. 'What would my King ask of me?'

Elessar motioned for the door that led into the study adjoining the Council chamber. Faramir bowed his head and waited for the King to lead the way, which he did after a tiny, almost bemused pause. He had lead thousands to battle and victory, and yet it seemed he was not yet acclimatised to being given precedence in his own Citadel. Small signs such as this spoke of a humility of spirit that Faramir found both admirable and appealing. He stepped after his liege-lord into the room that until very recently had been his father's study.

Already its cavernous austerity had been softened by a few simple changes. The unyielding straight-backed chairs that had stood before the Steward's desk for as long as Faramir had remembered were gone. In their place were two handsomely carven armchairs with tapestried cushions on the seats. The bare floor, upon which Faramir had stood so often to hear his father's judgements on his schoolwork, his performance at swordplay or archery, or upon his latest campaign in Ithilien, was now interrupted by a richly woven rug with fringed edges. The fireplace was laid ready to be lit, though it was not needed on such a clement day, and upon the mantelpiece stood several slender volumes bound in coloured leathers. A washstand occupied one corner, and along the wall beside the hearth was a high couch with a plain sheet folded upon its foot.

'Please sit,' said Elessar, indicating the chairs as he took his own. He had a sheaf of papers in one hand, notes and loosely drafted proposals from the Council meeting. These he spread neatly and then seemed to promptly forget. As Faramir settled, the King sat forward and smiled.

'I have not taken the opportunity to thank you adequately for all that you have done for the City these last weeks,' he said. 'It can have been no small task, and yet all was done with capability and grace. Your love for our people and your aptitude for such duties are plain. I thank you most earnestly: in you I have all that a monarch could wish from his Steward.'

Faramir cast down his eyes, gratified by the praise but uncomfortable. In matters of state he might speak with the confidence of a Captain and Councillor, but alone with his King he knew not what to say. 'It was not I who should have been your Steward, my Lord,' he murmured. 'Yet I have striven to do what I can to be worthy of the trust laid upon me.'

'You have.' Still warm, Elessar's voice was now also gentle. 'Faramir, I speak now not as your King but as your healer. A shadow lies yet upon your heart. It has no taint of Morgul foulness upon it, and yet I can see how it burdens you. Have you spoken to anyone of your sorrow?'

'To whom would I speak, my Lord?' Faramir asked, raising his eyes before he could school the plaintive plea within. 'He who was my confidant rode northward long ago, and such matters are not fitting for a Captain to discuss with his men.'

'Perhaps not,' said the King, and his eyes were misted in memory. 'Yet even a Captain must have someone to turn to, even if it is his own Lieutenant. I am not your long comrade, it is true, but we share a bond that can only be forged where death walks. I would be honoured if you would see fit to confide in me now.'

Faramir shook his head, but not in refusal. His throat was tight and his lips dry. 'Sire…' he breathed.

'Aragorn,' said Elessar. 'I would esteem it a great boon if you would use my true name. Seldom enough have I heard it through the long years of my life, and I would not lay it aside even with these new honours and titles to adorn me.'

'Aragorn…' Faramir tried the name upon his tongue. He had known it, of course, but until now had never presumed to speak it. It was a privilege of intimacy, an intimacy he did not feel that he had earned. Yet as he uttered it now, the feel of it and the sound were natural, even pleasant. The smallest of smiles touched his lips. 'Aragorn, you travelled long in my brother's company. What can you tell me of his last journey? Of his death?'

'His death was the equal of many told of in song,' said the King – said Aragorn. 'He fell defending the youngest of the Periannath: Meriadoc who was esquire to Théoden King, and Peregrin the faithful knight of Gondor. The Uruk-hai of Saruman had beset them, and Boromir fought to the last to save them. Who is to say what calamity would have smitten our Fellowship and the world had he not waylaid that raiding band?'

A darkness as of dread passed through his eyes, and Faramir though he saw the faintest shudder. But Aragorn's gaze was steady and he went on. 'One score or more he slew with his bright blade, ere their arrows overcame him. The others fled. It was I who was with him at the moment of his death. He strove despite his many wounds and his pain to speak to me. He was able to tell me that the Halflings lived yet, and if he had not done so I do not know how my choice would have gone. It was that hope that drove me – and Gimli and Legolas with me – through the long, swift westward hunt.'

Faramir nodded, but he knew the tale was not complete. He understood Aragorn's reluctance to speak, his desire to spare him. He did not know that it was too late for that, even had Faramir wished it. 'I know of the Ring, and of his temptation,' he said softly. 'From the Ring-bearer himself I had the tale. Did Boromir say naught else? With his last breath, did he not repent?'

He had believed it, for he had seen his brother's face serene and beautiful in death. Yet now the fingers of doubt clutched at his heart, as his father's hands had clutched the Seeing Stone to the very end. The shadow within him seemed to blossom into an eclipsing storm, where before it had been but a low echo of melancholy.

The King closed his eyes and bowed his head. 'Not with his last breath, but in his first words to me when I came upon him. Great strength of will it took him even to speak, and he uttered first of all his remorse for that lone failing.' He looked up at Faramir, and his eyes were very bright. 'Your brother was a noble man, and he served well the Quest even unto the last. You must not dwell upon a single stumble on a long, hard road walked in faithfulness.'

'I know,' murmured Faramir. 'I do not. Yet I am glad to know that he confessed the wrong to you, for I know you would not let him go to his death without words of absolution to ease it. A King's forgiveness: what more could any man hope to receive?'

'There was naught that warranted forgiveness, nor that it would have been my place to pardon,' said Aragorn gravely. 'He had been tempted, yes, and yet he did not seize the Ring – as it would have been within his might to do. Thus I pledged to him that he had not failed in his charge, but conquered. "Few have gained such a victory," said I. "Be at peace!". I spoke not only of his prowess in the battle with the orcs, mighty though it was. If I gave him some small comfort in that moment I am glad, for in his dying words he gave me certainty in my dreadful doubt. He laid upon me the charge to come to Minas Tirith in his stead, and I swore that the City would not fall.'

'You have kept your vow,' Faramir said, the words rising over a suffusing warmth within his heart. In Ithilien he had spoken to Frodo son of Drogo, and he had quantified the Halfling's assurance that Boromir had accepted the claim of the Heir of Isildur. Faramir had been compelled to wonder how long such acceptance would have lasted, had the two come to Gondor and stood before Denethor in his great stone chair. Rivals in Gondor's wars, he had said they might have been, himself doubtful that the King might ever come again.

To know that at the last Boromir had laid such a charge upon Aragorn, that he had offered up Gondor and her great City into the guardianship of the rightful King, quieted Faramir's troubled spirit. His brother's foresight and wisdom in the moment of his death were beauteous, and both Faramir and Elessar would know this always: that Boromir son of Denethor, firstborn and the rightful successor to the Stewardship, had welcomed Elendil's Heir and entrusted him with the rule that was his by right. He had done what their father had lacked the faithfulness to do.

'Thank you, my Lord,' breathed Faramir. At the small, sad smile that touched the King's lips, he steadied his gaze and said earnestly; 'Aragorn, I thank you. I could have chosen no more fitting companion to stay by Boromir's side in his moment of death. I am grateful to you for your wisdom and your grace. I am thankful, too, for the care with which you discharged his last rites. I saw him arrayed in funereal honour, as if upon a stone couch in Rath Dínen.'

Aragorn nodded. 'Samwise told me,' he said quietly. 'Your brother was a worthy man, Faramir, and you are no less worthy. In him I would have had a valiant Steward in war. In you, I see that I will find a wise Steward with whom to forge my peace. Yet is there nothing more that burdens your heart? I cannot think this hurt your only one.'

'My father.' The words were scarcely more than a whisper, as much an articulation of the King's private thoughts as an answer to his question, for there had been in truth no question. Faramir's innards seemed to shrivel. Where his ponderings upon Boromir's death in battle had been painful but never conflicted, each thought of his sire brought with it a tumult of muddled and miserable emotion. 'I do not know what I may say to you, sire. What he did… it was not well done.'

'No.' Aragorn's voice was gentle, soft with pity and a mournful understanding that Faramir could not have hoped to hear. 'It was not well done, for no father should wound his son as he has wounded you. Yet at the last Denethor son of Ecthelion was not the master of his own mind. It was the action of the Enemy, Faramir, as much as the action of the father you knew.'

'Yet he laid his mind open to Sauron,' Faramir said, unable to keep the bitterness from his voice. 'He knew the peril, and still he dabbled with that he had no right to touch.'

'He had some right,' said Aragorn measuredly. 'The Palantír, like the other heirlooms of the House of Anárion, was entrusted to the Steward to keep against the day when the King should come again. It was a part of the same bequest that left Gondor so long in the care of your family.'

'To keep, aye, but not to use. No more than it was his right to wear the Crown,' said Faramir. He shook his head. 'And to know that he used it first not in the moment of our doom, but long years before… it is shameful, sire, and it was folly.'

'We cannot judge too harshly they who fall to folly in their desperation,' Aragorn said quietly. His eyes were troubled, and no longer did they meet Faramir's. There was a quality to his voice that betrayed to the Steward the King's own divergent thoughts upon the matter. He was not uttering consolations out of a well of certainty: he was himself trying to divine how his judgment ought to fall in this matter.

'It was unwise,' he said after a moment's troubled silence. 'Yet in moments of great need any leader of men may take a course deemed unwise, and do so in an act of terrible courage and noblest intent. Think of the march upon the Morannon: what was that but folly to most men's eyes? Or your own valiant and desperate ride… unwise, perhaps, but most needful. I do not doubt that when first your father took the Palantír in his hands, he believed his action just as necessary.'

Faramir could not but look askance at this. His father, ever driven by his hunger to preserve the old ways of Gondor, had made many choices that had proved ill for his land and his people. This was but one, and the longstanding repetition of the transgression, over and over through the years as the Shadow grew upon the eastern horizon and deepened its hold upon the Steward's mind, made of it a misjudgement that was no better than wilful treason.

'Sire, you did not know him…' Faramir began.

'I knew him.' Now the King's words and his eyes were filled with sorrow, all doubt forgotten. 'I knew him long ago, ere you or Boromir were born; ere he loved your mother; ere he fell to his envy and his lust for omniscient knowledge. Even then he was a hard man, swift to criticise and slow to praise, but he was a noble man. Noble, and fiercely loyal to his duty. At times his judgment lapsed, but he was a mighty Captain-General in Gondor's great need, and as Steward he held her borders longer than any lesser man could have done. That he fell to the darkness is one of the great griefs in a war fraught with tragedy.'

Faramir's lips moved, but no sound issued forth. His mind was muddled with many conflicting questions and a tempest of unrestful feeling. The question of how the King had come to walk in Gondor long ago, unheralded and unrecognized, was not even near the forefront, though it plucked at him. In the end it was no question at all that rose to his lips, but a confession.

'I mourn him,' he said, his voice very low. 'Although he died shamefully, although he betrayed his people, although he would have…' But this last he could not say. He cast his eyes away, unable too look upon the one who had undone the evil of the Nazgûl and restored life to he whom Denethor had thought past redemption. Where his own father had seen nothing to salvage, Aragorn son of Arathorn had found life, and worth, and cause enough to try.

A hand settled upon his arm where it was turned in nearest the desk. Faramir's eyes darted up to see the King leaning far over the polished surface so that he might touch him. In that touch there was the memory of the moment when, stumbling in blackness and flame, he had been borne up as if by bracing arms: the moment when he had been led back from the abyss. He swallowed painfully and met his liege-lord's kind and knowing eyes.

'Of course you mourn him,' Aragorn said. 'You must, for you love him. He loved you also, for even in the blackness of his despair he sought to save you in the only way he could see. He knew what awaited one left too long to the Morgul-poisons. He could not surrender you to that.'

As if a millstone had been toppled from his heart, Faramir drew in a deep and cleansing breath. This was what he had needed, he realized at once: not only to be reassured of his own worthiness but to have his guilty sorrow made honourable and his father's harsh and desperate actions cast in a light more merciful than that of impartial fact. The truth flowed deeper than the seeming, and Faramir had needed someone else to see that also.

His own hand moved to clutch the King's, pressing it more firmly against his arm. Then he slipped his thumb between the palm and his sleeve, and clasped Aragorn's hand. As the grip was reciprocated, Faramir turned in so that his Lord might recall his reach a little. They met one another's eyes, and in the King's Faramir read not only comprehension and compassion but a grief not unlike his own: sorrow for the downfall of one who might have achieved such goodness in the world, and for the loss a life – any life – in such torment and horror.

'We must not dwell upon his final failing, either,' said Aragorn, earnest and firm. 'Though he did not achieve what Boromir did and redeem his error, your father was in his time a great man, and he did much good for Gondor also. While I reign, he shall be remembered for his great deeds and honoured for them. This I promise you.'

'Sire, I have not the words…' Faramir began. Then he stopped, for he saw that words were not needed. The King knew his thoughts, and knew his gratitude. There was no cause for lengthy speech.

That was well, for at that precise moment the sound of soft shoes was heard in the Council chamber without, and a nimble-looking pageboy appeared on the threshold. He had a silver salver in his hands, its load carefully balanced. Tucking back one foot the boy bowed with his knees, and the King turned to smile at him as Faramir withdrew his hand.

'Thank you, Lethir,' Aragorn said, indicating that the youth should set down his burden. 'I shall have no further need of you for three hours. Use them as you will.'

'Yes, sire. Thank you, sire,' the page said, trying to hide his jubilation beneath a suitably formal demeanour. He made a proper bow, freed now of the tray, and retreated with grace. As soon as he was out of sight, however, sedate steps turned to the rush of running feet as he charged off to whatever glad pursuit he had waiting.

Upon the tray there was a dish of sweetmeats, and another of fresh fruit. A silver flagon held sweet yellow wine, and there was a silver goblet tooled in gold. This the King filled and raised above the middle of the desk. He hesitated, seeming to consider. Then he brought the vessel to his lips and drank, before offering it to Faramir.

He had judged aright the etiquette, and Faramir was in no doubt as to the intent of the gesture. Had the King offered him the wine first, it would have been both improper and uncomfortable. By tasting of the cup and then inviting Faramir to drink, Aragorn was honouring him. They were as brothers, that gesture said, and that distinction woke Faramir's love and gratitude afresh. With a respectful but not subservient nod, he drank. Then he set the vessel midway between them.

Aragorn had plucked up a delicate creation made of pastry studded with dried berries and dusted all over with snowy sugar. His lip curled upward, pleased but also ironical, as he looked it over.

'I have yet to accustom myself to the notion,' he said, in a slow and almost dreamy fashion; 'that I have but to express my idlest wish for food or drink, and it shall be brought to me: whatever I please, if it be within the powers of the kitchens and the storehouses of the City to provide it.'

Faramir smiled and took for himself a strawberry as plump and red as a ruby. He did not bite into it at once, though, for the King had not yet begun to eat. He looked at the little fruit, luscious and inviting with the year's early bounty, and his heart was once more light within him. It would be a year of grace and plenty. How could it not be, with Sauron cast down and the Shadow gone from the world?

'It is a welcome luxury,' he agreed.

Aragorn had taken a bite of the dainty. His eyebrows arched a little as he swallowed. 'Aye, you know of what I speak,' he said. 'Doubtless you have known times of want upon your easterly patrols. Even in less perilous times, the challenges of supplying the men in Ithilien were many.'

'For the most part I was fortunate, and my men with me,' said Faramir. 'But yes: there were hungry winter months enough, and periods of voluntary rationing strict enough to pinch the belly so as to prevent tomorrow's famine. I fear to ask what privations you have endured in your long wanderings.'

The King smiled crookedly, about to make some wry remark. Then something like sudden remembrance ignited in his eyes and he set down what remained of the little cake. He chafed his fingers against one another, brushing off the sweet powder. Then he fixed Faramir with a pleasant but inscrutable eye.

'I have had my share,' he said. 'Yet for each hardship there came relief in time, not always commensurate but ever welcome. It is those moments I would sooner remember, rather than the other. Many times I have been buoyed up in my labours by the generosity of others. Too often my benefactors had no means of knowing what a boon their simple gifts and quiet charity was to me, nor what suffering it eased, nor what grave cost it spared. It is one of the highest lessons that I have learned from my trials: that the smallest act of grace or pity may sow a far greater good.'

Faramir considered this. 'I suppose it must be so,' he said. 'Surely any man who found himself called upon to aid you in your toils was blessed a thousandfold, though he knew it not. Surely to help the hidden King upon his road, were it even with a crust of bread, would be an honour to he who did so.'

'Thinkst thou so, Faramir son of Denethor?' asked Aragorn. There was a curious note in his voice, and the shift in his language gave the question almost the feel of a riddle-song.

'Assuredly,' said Faramir. He smiled and popped the strawberry into his mouth, easing back into his chair. Through these last heady days he had hoped for this, and now that he had it he could scarcely say how it had come to pass: here he sat with his King in amity and comfort, as a friend and not only an advisor and servant. 'How could it be otherwise?'

Aragorn's hands moved to his shoulder, unpinning the brooch that clasped his mantle. The velvet garment slithered from his shoulders to pool over the arms of the chair, and the King leaned forward to set the article upon the desktop. The Elessar, which he wore always as an adornment rather than an item of practical wear, glittered still more gloriously without the shade of the mantle. Its green gem was bright and drew the eye from the less intricate piece.

'Tell me what you make of that, Lord Steward,' he said, indicating the brooch on the table as he sat back and took another mouthful of wine.

Faramir reached to recover it, and studied the silver ornament thoughtfully. It was a star, six-rayed and silver. The design was simple and the workmanship exquisite. It had a soft, burnished glow that came only to old metals well-tended. He turned it over to look at the slender lance and the hook that held it. These too were of remarkable quality, strong and yet delicate.

'It is a lovely thing,' said Faramir, setting it down again. 'All of your men wear them: the Grey Company that came out of the North. All save the two sons of Elrond.'

'That is the Star of the Dúnedain,' said Aragorn. 'It is an emblem of the remnant of Arnor, signifying unity of purpose even in secrecy and ignominy. Your Rangers in Ithilien had ever the closeness of their comrades and the security of a hidden sanctuary to give them a sense of belonging and support. When my Rangers could have neither, at least there was the Star.'

'That is a handsome sentiment,' Faramir said. The thought of his own men uprooted and left to wander the Wild alone or in pairs, far from their fellows and the care of their Captain, turned him cold. How had their kinsmen in the North endured so long in faithfulness, if such had been their lot? 'It is surely a dear thing, then.'

'It is,' agreed Aragorn. The smile was creeping across his face once more. 'Do you not recognize it, Faramir?'

'My King, I have told you that I do,' said Faramir, puzzled. He wondered whether the elder man would speak to correct him, or to point out some oversight that he had made, but Aragorn did not.

'Let me tell you a tale,' he said instead. He retrieved the remains of his sweetmeat and ate it with brief but blissful relish. Then his face took on the cast of a storyteller looking back upon a time half-forgotten. 'I have told you that my journeys were often fraught with hardships. Upon one road I walked long in dreary perseverance, hunting a creature I could no longer hope to find. You know him, I think: Gollum, he was called, who followed Frodo and Sam to your hidden haven.'

Faramir's nose wrinkled reflexively, forgetting the dignity of its rank. He wondered how long it would be before he could look upon a dish of dressed trout without thinking of the squelch of a limp silvery carcass thrown uncooked at his feet with the sullen proclamation of 'Don't want fish.'.

'It would be too far to say I know him, but certainly I have seen him and spoken with him,' he allowed. 'I cannot think why you would have wished to seek him.'

'He had knowledge of the One Ring ere it was found,' said Aragorn. 'When Mithrandir and I began to suspect that it was in the possession of a friend, it became necessary to learn all that Gollum knew on the matter. That is a long tale, and I pledge that I will tell it all in time. Yet when I had sought Gollum for many years without fruit, I chanced to take refuge among the brambles and stony places of eastern Ithilien.'

'A dangerous place to seek refuge,' said Faramir. 'The thralls of Mordor upon one side, and my men upon the other. Or was this before my tenure as Captain, when perhaps the need for stringency was less pressing?'

'It was but two winters past,' Aragorn said, almost amused. 'During your tenure, verily, but I was alone and I was careful. I do not think I drew the attention of your men in those days, when I rested my body's hurts and found what sustenance I could in slumbering lands. I was not waylaid as I made my slow way northward, and I came at length within sight of the Black Gate. It was there that my vigilance lapsed, and I was beset by orcs and captured.'

Faramir opened his mouth sharply, meaning to speak. Then he realized he had naught to say. He closed it again and shook his head ever so slightly. Something was stirring in his memory, low but insistent. And the King went on.

'They took me to a certain place where it seemed they had often camped before,' he said. 'The leader was eager that I should be questioned as swiftly and as harshly as possible.' At Faramir's look of dismay, Aragorn smiled a little. 'Fear not: they did me little harm. With dawn upon them they bound me and took refuge in their cave. Though I was able to loose my bonds and take flight, my captors had despoiled my baggage and all of my scant provisions. I ran with naught but my knife, my garments, and the noose about my neck.'

'Sire!' Faramir gasped. His eyes were upon the silver star, his memory insisting upon that which his rational mind protested. It could not be so, and yet...

'I led you on a merry chase, I fear,' said Aragorn, tilting his head as his smile grew apologetic. 'The young Ranger who found me was dismayed, no doubt. Mithrandir told me he was gentle of heart.'

'Anborn,' Faramir said, fondness in his voice. Too many of his men had fallen in battle, but those who had been left to hold Henneth Annûn had escaped the worst of the slaughter. Only eleven days past he had learned that Anborn was among the survivors. The moment's glad reverie was interrupted by the return of critical thought. 'But the man he found in the keeping of the band of Uruks…' He shook his head, unbelieving and yet knowing.

'Yes?' The question was almost a laugh, and the King's eyes glittered as if in play. His mirth was infectious, and Faramir found it warring with his dismay.

'But why did you flee from us?' he asked. 'Your allies; your loyal men!'

'They were Denethor's men in those days, and you the Steward's faithful Captain,' said Aragorn, patient and shrewd at once but without any ill feeling in eyes or voice. 'I knew the prohibitions against trespass, and the orders you would have regarding the disposition of wanderers within your borders. I knew I need fear no harm from Gondor's good men,' he added before Faramir could protest; 'but also I knew that there would be questions, and delays – that you might even find it your duty to carry me under guard to Minas Tirith, that your liege-lord himself might judge my case.'

Faramir wished he might deny this, knowing all that he now knew, but he could not. Two years ago, when he and his few companions had pursued the runaway, that had indeed been his intent: to question the stranger, to treat his wounds and see him fed, and then to judge whether he should be held or might be permitted to go on his way.

'I could not risk it,' Aragorn said. He sounded almost regretful. 'My errand was too urgent, and my peril too great. And I had I been hauled before your father then, when there was no hope of casting Sauron from his tower, I would have brought strife to Gondor when most she needed to stand united. Denethor would have known me, if not for who I am then for what I once was. It would have been calamitous, perhaps ruinous.'

Again there came a barrage of questions, none of which could elbow past the others to reach Faramir's lips. But the troubled and almost fearful look left the King's eyes as he lifted them again to his Steward's face.

'I would beg your forgiveness for my insolence, Faramir, save that I know you have given it,' he said. 'I was near at hand when you halted at the fringe of the Dead Marshes, as even then you guessed. I heard what passed between you and your men. When I was certain you had withdrawn, I came forth to take what you had left for me.'

For a moment more, Faramir could not speak. This time Aragorn waited until he found his words. 'I did not know, sire. I could not have known. Yet if I had…'

'If you had, you could have done me no greater kindness than you did upon that day,' said Aragorn. 'I was hungry and without hope of food, and you gave me both bread and meat. My road led on through deadly pools, and you left me fresh water. I was haunted by despair, and you gave me hope not only for myself but for all the world.'

He poured another measure of wine, and motioned for Faramir to take the first taste. He was about to demur, when he understood the meaning of this gesture as he had the first. 'I am glad,' he said, and he drank. 'I wish I might have done more. Afterwards I often wished I had left a third bottle, but I could not risk depriving the men in my care.'

'I would have done the same,' agreed the King gravely. He took up his star and studied it. 'You even contrived to send this back to me. I grieved to lose it then, and should have rued it still more in days less desperate.'

'Mithrandir bore it to you, I presume?' said Faramir. 'I saw at once that it was known to him. He did his utmost to appear unaffected by my tale, but his dismay could not be masked. Knowing now what he knew then, I cannot wonder at it.'

He wished to say more, but he could not. The thought of the last Heir of Isildur, without brother or progeny to follow him, in the clutches of a band of Morgul-orcs was sickening enough. To know that he had been left alone to brave the perils of the Dead Marshes with two skins of water and a little travel fare, so lately seen bound and bloodied, was dreadful. As his friend as well as his confederate in the long struggle against the Shadow, Mithrandir must have been all but frantic for news after such a tale. From this comfortable vantage beyond the victory, it was easy to understate how harrowing the moment must have been.

'Aye, he bore it to me, and scolded me roundly for the losing of it.' Aragorn was still looking at the silver treasure, a fond and almost wistful smile upon his lips. 'Never had any Man such a friend as I have had in Gandalf the Grey.'

Then he blinked thrice, rapidly, like a sleeper awakening from sad dreams into sunshine. He lifted a smile to Faramir's eyes. 'Yet these are new days, made for new ventures and new friendships,' he said. 'We knew one another ere ever we met, Faramir: Captain and vagabond, Steward and King. Surely that is a promising beginning to a reign, is it not?'

'Verily, my Lord,' said Faramir, and his heart sang within him. 'I can think of none better.'

metta

Appendix F: The Beorning Family Chronicle

The large and lively family of Grimbeorn son of Beorn can at times be difficult to keep straight in one's head! Formatting limitations prevent the posting of a proper family tree, and so in place there is this brief chronicle of the great Skin-changer's descendants. The ages in parenthesis are those of each family member at the time of Aragorn's visit to the lodge in March 3017, when he found succour on his eastward journey for two blessed nights

Eira (68) wife of Grimbeorn (74) bore:

Baldbeorn (42): A sombre and wise man, who thinks much and says little. He is the one in his generation with the greatest talent for baking his grandsire's famed honey-cakes.

Randbeorn (41): Jolly and swift to laugh, Randbeorn is gifted in the care of horses.

Heidra (33): The only daughter of Eira and Grimbeorn, Heidra is also the only one of Grimbeorn's children to dwell in the Town at the Carrock. Her dower gift from her parents financed the bakery she and Kvigir operate.

Sigbeorn (24): The youngest and most playful of the four, Sigbeorn is charmingly impudent and not especially observant. He is unwed.

The children by marriage of Grimbeorn and Eira are:

Freya (39) wife of Baldbeorn: Courageous and at times outspoken, Freya is tall and very firm in her opinions. Her authority in the kitchen is second only to Eira's.

Clothilde (34), wife of Randbeorn: Quiet and capable, Clothilde is badly frightened by Gollum's attempt to reach for Svala. She is skilled in the art of pleasant conversation.

Kvigir (38) husband of Heidra: A poverty-stricken youth and a challenging courtship laid the foundation for a remarkably stable life. Fiercely loyal to his people, Kvigir is a good-hearted man but very vulnerable to judging by appearances.

Freya wife of Baldbeorn bore:

Una (17): Intelligent, capable and something of a flirt, Una has begun her apprenticeship under her grandmother, Eira. She is learning the healing arts and shows great promise.

Urdbeorn (16): Patient and good-natured, Urdbeorn is said to tend both his flocks with equal care: the family's fine sheep, and the younger children of the household.

Ufrún (13): A quiet middle child of a busy brood, Ufrún is an expert in the art of coddling eggs.

Halla (8): Somewhat supercilious, as an eight-year-old should be, Halla sings in her sleep.

Delbeorn (5): Usually found in the company of Otkala, Delbeorn is outspoken and rather dramatic.

Inga (unborn): Inga was born one week before Aragorn's return to the house in the company of Gandalf the Grey. She was small at birth, dwarfed by her father's strong hands.

Clothilde wife of Randbeorn bore:

Harlbeorn (12): Having recently 'taken his chair' and joined the adult section of the family board, Harlbeorn offers his place to Sigbeorn out of unprompted courtesy. He is one of the quieter children in the household, and is the one most intrigued by the mending of Aragorn's boots.

Torbeorn (8): A lofty dreamer, Torbeorn is hungry for adventure and intends to grow up to be a spider-slayer. He also has a lively interest in beekeeping.

Otkala (5): Otkala is very frank, and fully aware of her own charm. She is most often seen with Delbeorn.

Svala (6 months): Svala is adventurous and curious. She has lately learned to crawl.

Heidra wife of Kvigir bore:

Katrín (7): Timid and easily frightened, Katrín fancies herself one of the older children: she more often seeks the company of Halla and Ufrún than Dryffa, Delbeorn and Otkala.

Dryffa (6): Dryffa has the courage and confidence of her mother's kindred. When Gollum bares his teeth, she responds by sticking out her tongue at him.

Appendix F: The Mewlips

Poem 9 in The Adventures of Tom Bombadil, J.R.R. Tolkien, is alluded to throughout A Long and Weary Way. Some of the references are very plain, as in the name of the tale itself and the titles of a number of its chapters. Others are more subtle: the ceilings drip in the cavern beneath the Ephel Dúath, and the gorcrows croak their terrible song in Aragorn’s nightmare in Imladris. What are some of the “Mewlips” references that you noticed?   

I owe a great deal to the Professor for this poem, both for my inspiration and for the delicious chill I felt when first I read it. I feel it fitting to include it here, in gratitude.

The Mewlips

by J.R.R. Tolkien

The shadows where the Mewlips dwell
Are dark and wet as ink,
And slow and softly rings their bell,
As in the slime you sink.

You sink into the slime, who dare
To knock upon their door,
While down the grinning gargoyles stare
And noisome waters pour.

Beside the rotting river-strand
The drooping willows weep,
And gloomily the gorcrows stand
Croaking in their sleep.

Over the Merlock Mountains a long and weary way,
In a mouldy valley where the trees are grey,
By a dark pool's borders without wind or tide,
Moonless and sunless, the Mewlips hide.

The cellars where the Mewlips sit
Are deep and dank and cold
With single sickly candle lit;
And there they count their gold.

Their walls are wet, their ceilings drip;
Their feet upon the floor
Go softly with a squish-flap-flip,
As they sidle to the door.

They peep out slyly; through a crack
Their feeling fingers creep,
And when they've finished, in a sack
Your bones they take to keep.

Beyond the Merlock Mountains, a long and lonely road,
Through the spider-shadows and the marsh of Tode,
And through the wood of hanging trees and gallows-weed,
You go to find the Mewlips - and the Mewlips feed.