In the North winter came in like a ghost. Quiet in the fell lands between the Ettenmoors and the Great East Road, creeping its fingers up the dark barks of birch until greenness was as distant in the memory as the rumors of a long-forgotten king. Even in the high month of harvest, when the Shire-folk were still threshing their grains and baling their hay, when smoke from Bree-land houses faded in long contented veils into the high and austere sky, even on such a pleasant October day it may find you, a bitter reminder, that summer had only been a dream. The branches bare. The last crops ruined. The early frost a pall on the bouldered ground. Under the thin late moon the great plains of Eriador trembled in the first cold winds of the season. Things that did not sleep were already dying. Things that were not dead were long gone. One or two Dwarf-folk you found on the East Road but some nights even the Pony at Bree was empty, its fire a cold circle of stone and old Butterbur snoring behind the bar.

But all was not asleep. Ever the Dúnedain made their trackless patrol in the darkness like silent slinking wolves, ragged and few. Among the rocks and ruins the Rangers laid their waysigns, sped from hill to hill like a secret rumor on roads only they traveled. So gathered they were to Bree, what lieutenants who could be spared, from their scattered watches west and east, for their chieftain had returned from his long sojourn in lands godless and mountains strange.

Halbarad came last, delayed by the recent rains which washed away many road-words, save that by chance a rider came upon him on the Greenway and told him the news. And so he hastened, while the days grew short and rain stuttered between the winds. The roads were rutty from horsecarts dragged through the mud and Bree-Hill was quiet except for the night-baying of dogs. At the town gates the guard let him pass through the side door and trudged back to his shack where doubtless he fell back to dreams of nights with fewer duties and warmer beds and perhaps a dram or two to speed his sleep. The rain finally stopped. The sky turned blue and then black. The moon rose a wan wound in the clouds.

Butterbur had already turned in. One of the hobbits showed him through to Aragorn’s room, and the few folks still out, big and little, eyed him as he passed by the common room. “Watchers in and out of town, what’s it all come to!” the hobbit muttered as his candlelight faded down the hall.

At the threshold they embraced.

“Aragorn, I can scarcely believe my eyes.” Halbarad’s gears were still wet. In their long embrace he felt their coldness seep into Aragorn’s night clothes. Aragorn was warm and Halbarad was chilled to his bone. “You’ve grown, cousin,” he said, laughing.

“I suppose I have—grown old.”

Still holding him close, Halbarad looked on him. “So have I—the years have parted between us both. Yet I dare say you wear it with better grace than I.”

“You had better come in.”

Halbarad laid aside his wet cloak and settled into the room—a back one on the eastern side of the Inn, cut into the hill. It had but one window, and its dark panes looked onto the narrow side-road.

In the small room meant for Breeland traders Aragorn was an astonishing figure, tall and princely, barely contained, as if the cold confines of the coarse cobb walls could waver away in the firelight at his dismissal. His hair was long and his beard shorn close. At once Halbarad remembered the feeling of being in Aragorn’s presence when he was a young man, excitement, ill-ease: his Elvish air, for he was fostered among them with no knowledge of his lineage, scarcely knowing his own people before making his journey. Last Halbarad remembered of Aragorn, it was the evening before his departure south. He was bare-faced then, soft-featured, and hardly a Man he looked but as a young Elven lord, tall and fair, making music among revelers in the Hall of Fire.

“You look well, Halbarad.”

“As well as I could be. You’ve finally returned.”

“’Tis been long years indeed, my friend. I’ve been waiting here for you.”

As they have waited for him—their chieftain and lord, whom they have protected since a babe in the arms of his widowed mother. Two long decades in the northern Wild, though that has been the way of the Rangers for all of Halbarad’s life—leaderless, waiting.

“The waysigns did not find me, for there was storm in Minhiriath south of the Baranduin and the Sarn Ford was flooded. Were it not for Albeth passing me by chance on the Greenway I would not have made my way to Bree.”

The hobbit interrupted with mugs of ale and some meat, which Aragorn laid between them. “I’ve not been here a fortnight and already I think the little master has grown rather tired of me.”

This much was the same, that Aragorn, the only heir of Isildur, should still refer to a hobbit errand-boy as “little master” with no ill-humor. Halbarad drank from the ale. The coldness still crept at the edges of the room, at his shirtsleeves, at his fingertips, at his feet. Aragorn took the bread and a cut of meat and split Halbarad his half.

“That is longer than most Rangers stay at the Pony.”

“That is a pity, for I have yearned for the Pony’s ale on many a league of the road.” Aragorn laughed. Yes, that was the same too, Halbarad thought. How easily he smiles, how beautifully. How much he looked like his young self and yet not, for his body was grown, his eyes dark, his hands callused with work.

“Is there no beer in the South? Or were they not to your liking?”

“Nay, there was much to my liking—the honey-mead of the Rohirrim and aged wines out of Lossanarch. And yet, I had come to love the ale here ere I departed, and the memory of it remained sweet to me, for it was a reminder of the North.”

Aragorn stood and stretched his long limbs. Indeed he looked more a part of the North, no longer Elven-fashioned, now ragged and well-worn, though his gears were Southern and strange.

“I had almost resolved to leave three days ago when message came that you were on your way. You took your time!”

“I was delayed in Tharbad before the weather turned ill.”

“What happened in Tharbad?”

“Orcs, as ever. They have become bolder since your departure. Far bolder than even our elders remember in all our dealings with them.

“I was making the southern patrols when I came on orc-tracks at Tharbad, on the northern side. Urthel I found at its watch, who said that the tracks were made in some nights ago while he slept, and though he had spied strange movements in the dawning hours he dared not move for their numbers he guessed were greater than he could defend. Glad he was of my arrival! For the tracks led out of a section of the causeway where they wrecked their rafts upon the remnants of old stones. I thought that they were orcs out of Moria who followed the Glanduin down to the Tharbad crossings, though I have never known the mountain-orcs to be watercrafty—or willing to venture this far out of their cave holes. Perhaps they were of a different horde, or mixed in kind.

“I tracked them—an easy task in the open plains, for they made no attempt to hide their presence. They went southward, almost to the edges of the Lond Daer ruins, but their traces vanished as I neared the mouth of the river. I dared not venture further alone, not knowing clearly their numbers. I had little notion of where they went, or for what purpose.”

“Could you guess by the craft’s wood where the trees were felled?”

“Not from nearby—I dare say they did not venture into the Nîn-in-Eilph marshes, for the willows there are not waterworthy and in any case the wood seemed well-used.”

“Then they are moving with a purpose—to carry their craft so far.”

“Indeed, though to what end I could not discover. For days I tarried on northern bank of the river, unsure of where to follow. I traced my way back to Tharbad where I thought of crossing the river—a dangerous task even without the threat of orcs nearby. Something then changed my mind—for suddenly the sharp whir of wingbeats rose from the marshy remains of the Swanfleet. A single white swan soared on the Gwathló and disappeared into the northern sky, and from that way came a long and sad cry, unlike any swan call I have heard. Amazed, I gazed north for a long time—and in my heart I thought of you. Had it not been I would not have turned northward.”

The fire crackled. Outside, the moon had climbed high in the sky, its light a thin veil of silver over the cobblestones, clear and cold.

“Aragorn, I think that more than messages or riders have summoned me here.”

If Aragorn had thought aught of this, he showed none on his face. “Maybe,” he said.

“Maybe? You have sojourned to southern lands for two decades. Though you may not remember—I was against it all those years ago when you left, even as Lord Elrond gave your journey blessing. Little news of you have we heard since you went south—and that was some years ago. Yet on the eve of your return I am summoned by a calling in my heart—surely it is augury, Aragorn.”

In truth Halbarad’s thoughts had turned to him often, in the two decades of his absence. While the orcish incursions increased and they buried their kinsmen in lonely and unmarked graves—sometimes Halbarad sought out signs of Aragorn’s return unheralded.

“An eyrar has lived in the Swanfleet of old—the Elves of Eregion knew them when unhewn were the ancient ash woods that covered all of Enedwaith,” Aragorn said, as if leafing through an entry on an atlas. “It is said that they had lived there since the waking of Arda, in Elder Days. You are blessed indeed, to see them, for they are secretive now, and few remain of the old flock. As for augury—it may be, and it may not be. I have not the foresight to read them, Halbarad. Though I think you guessed right, that the orc-kinds were more than one. There are orcs out of Minas Morgul and Ephel Dúath that will enter the waters of Anduin at need, though never in great numbers.”

“Minas Morgul! Surely you cannot think they made it this far north! That evil place out of Mordor where dwell the Wraiths.”

“That is but a guess, for there are other depths of the world where orcs live in foul waters, though I cannot name them. But they must be in league with the Moria orcs, to cross Tharbad on water.”

“For orc-kinds to work together, that is ill indeed.”

“Aye, they abide by no kinship and war among their own kind, and would not be gathered unless by an evil greater than their own.”

“If they are being assembled in Eriador—what do they seek to find? Could it be that the Enemy has discovered that the heir of Isildur yet lives?”

“The Enemy has not been idle since he declared himself three decades ago, though I had not thought his hands reached this far. Nay, I do not fear that he seeks aught of me. Isildur is not on his mind, for we have no fortresses or great strength of arms to oppose his dominion—though he must remember the bite of Narsil bitterly. Do not mistake me, I have ventured near the fences of Mordor, and its open wrath I have faced for much of my time in Gondor—his armies are strong, Halbarad, and greater than even Gondor can muster, so I deem. The Enemy is not yet moving, but when he does, he will move quickly. I fear not ere long we shall see more orcs travelling down the grey waters of the Gwathló.

“Indeed, this is the chief reason I have now returned—I did not summon you merely for travellers’ tales. I bring tidings, and they are ill.”

The candles flickered with a chill, and lightly the window glass rattled in their frames with a sudden wind.

“As they are ever.”

“I have spoken at length with Mithrandir in Imladris ere I came to Bree. He fears that the Enemy has some unknown need here in Eriador. Watch the Shire especially, so says Mithrandir, for they are truly defenseless against any concerted attacks by the orcs, and we may have need of the Hobbit-folk when we least expect it. What such need may be, he would not say, and I do not know if he himself knows too clearly. But Halbarad, where Mithrandir fears, however slightly, we must heed. My heart has ever turned towards his counsel during my travels—even above the others of the Wise. So I have returned with tidings of Shadow—and to call forth the Dúnedain to fortify our patrols of the North, such as we may.”

Suddenly Halbarad was struck with the thought that this was not the same young lord that he knew. No longer an Elven fosterling who knew not the dealings of Men. A captain he was now, whose glance, it seemed, could master hearts. Did so Tuor look to Voronwë, beside the heathered cliffs of Nevrast, wayworn yet unshorn of lordship? In the striped light of the fire his clothes flickered with deep colors unseen among the Northern flowers. Aragorn looked very much like his father, whom Halbarad had met once or twice as a small child. The nose. The soft hair. The sharply chamfered face. The eagle’s gaze. Two decades. How many brethren had they lost in the time hence. How many lads of too few a summer beneath orcish axes and arrows. What did Aragorn see out there that honed him thus—lands beyond the flat emptiness of Eriador? What did he see in Rohan, in Gondor, in that far flung kingdom of the Edain where the glory of Númenor yet breathed in living stone? In the great halls amongst her lords and captains, on mountaintops that looked unto the pale cup of the world, in those wide cobble streets of her City, in the kingdom that waited for her king? And what dark errantry took him so near Mordor to face horrors unsaid?

And yet. Hung up by the wall, Aragorn’s cloak was the same gray Ranger’s make, woven from flax grown north of the Angle that the womenfolk would rett in the summer months. It was wet as well from rain. At his breast, the Silver Star. At his belt, the broken Sword—it would scarcely leave Aragorn’s person. Thus as it was ever, the carefully kept Northern line, the blood of Elendil like a secret in his veins, what hope for peace and glory on those shoulders, dark with grime and still damp from their embrace. A pipe he had in his hand, but it was not lit.

The Ring of Barahir was nowhere to be seen.

The Bree-men. The Shire-folk. All the simple people who just want to make an honest living. Who yearn for little beyond the evening meal, the summer sun, the fat of the bacon and the down of the bed. How could they abjure against the chasm of malice that lurked behind their small stone walls, the shadows that crept upon these darkling, forsaken plains?

They both fell silent.

“I do remember, Halbarad.”

“Remember what?”

“I do remember that you were against it, my going.”

Aragorn’s voice was soft, wondering. It is said that in countenances of the great Kings of Númenor shone the glimmering light of the Great Sea, though countless leagues lay between Bree-Hill and the rocky shores of Lindon. Aragorn struck a hobbit-match and slowly lit his pipe.

He had thought it pointless, as did other lieutenants, that the only heir of Isildur should go south—a boy barely come to manhood. It was at the urging of Mithrandir, who thought it prudent for Aragorn to see the world beyond the spare plains of Eriador: great things were in his future, and he needed a lifetime of preparation. Long they debated in Elrond’s study, half a dozen of them, about the duty the Chieftain had to remain in the North, to oversee its fences, to lead the Rangers, to grow among his people. Mithrandir was short. Lord Elrond impassive. Halbarad himself weary of the circles their words walked around each other.

Aragorn, though, was of his own mind. He spoke after a long sour silence late in the night: “My lords, kinsmen. We have talked long and the hours is late. Yet I believe I shall keep my own counsel on this matter, and I have decided. I will go on this journey, though it pains me to leave the North and my people, whom I love. But Mithrandir speaks aright. What is foretold of me, as I understand it, lies beyond the lands that I know. Yet I have never crossed the Anduin where stand the forbidding figures of the Argonath nor laid eyes on the peaks of Ered Nimrais. And I will not deny that I yearn to see them—places that I have only known as points on atlases in the maproom of Imladris, for I find it wondrous, is it not, the wide breadth of the earth and all that lives within it. Therefore I will go, to see the realms and kingdoms beyond Hithaeglir and learn with my own mind the hearts of Men.”

Halbarad remembered he saw Mithrandir smile beneath the brim of his long hat.

“I knew, when you had said your mind—that you were ready. Though I did not wish for you to go, the journey’s path was already beneath your feet.”

“No great leader did I feel, green as I was.”

“When the Chieftain has decided then none could gainsay him.”

“So it seemed. For none did, and it seemed to me a miracle. In the end it was my lady mother’s approval that was the hardest to win. She did not desire to come to the council—and perhaps that was good, for we argued long in private.”

The lady Gilraen—she was already weary of the world, of the fighting, of her station, of the Rangers. Doubtless she could not countenance what she saw was the loss of her son to wilderness unknown.

“Come, Aragorn. Let us not dwell on past quarrels. I am eager to hear of your journey. Some I have already heard from the lady Gilraen—you were in Rohan under its king Thengel, and after years of service left his court southward to serve under the Steward of Gondor as a captain the army. Though beyond these bare facts, I know little.”

“As you say, I left Rohan some year ago. The Rohirrim I found to be a trusty folk, as easy to song as to battle. From them I learned much—tactics, after their fashion, and in horsemanship they are second to none.”

“Is it true that they prize their horses almost as kin.”

“Aye, they raise mounds for the war-steeds of great lords and warriors—and if both fell together, the horse is buried in the master’s barrow. In Rohan horses are no mere beasts, though one would not find the same weregild for a horse as for man or woman.”

Halbarad gave a wry smile, thinking of the draft-ponies of the Bree-men, sometimes less loved than the lowest dog of the house.

“Tales among the Rohirrim are not written in script, but in song passed from bard to bard like living words. Different, too, are their verse from the Elven-forms favored by the court poets of Númenor, though doubtless it too was learned of Elvenesse of old. But perhaps that is a conversation for another hall.”

“Tell me of Gondor, then, for I admit I am eager to learn of it. Little do we in the North hear of its affairs, and from untrusty lips besides. How did you find the White City?”

Aragorn laughed softly, and pulled from his pipe. “Gondor! Gladly I will tell thee of Gondor.

“As Mithrandir has said, the people of Gondor are true, though diminished from the days of old, and so are all that live in these latter days. Noble Men who still speak the Eldar tongue, and practice Elven-customs inherited from Númenor that were passed down among the Faithful, though they no longer recognize it as such. But they grow stern—brittle and wary. Their eyes are ever trained towards the threat in the East, and perhaps forget to look upon themselves. And proud, too, they are. Too proud. Unheeding of other folk that walk on this earth—lest they find themselves and their pride lessened by the comparison, I think. I’m afraid I may have been the last outsider they trusted.”

“So her Steward had welcomed you?”

“Aye, the Steward of Gondor. Lord Ecthelion, second of his name. He is a wise man. It is Gondor’s fortune that he is come to her Stewardship in these times of Shadow. Thorongil of the Star, they called me, for the only emblem I wore was the Star of the North.”

“Did they ask aught of your origins?”

“For the most part, no. In the pride of Gondor the memory of the Northern Kingdom seems paler than a shadow. Few know of our history, or even name the old cities of the North. Alas, who can blame them, if they are naught but moss and stone. That is, most lords save one. Lord Denethor, son of the Steward, in whom the blood of Númenor still runs true. Stern, proud, heeding little council save his own. He saw much, and doubtless guessed near the truth about my origins and maybe even my intentions, for he did not like me from the beginning, and often our thoughts ran counter to each other.”

“You were an outsider.”

“Aye, this much I accept. That I cannot charm all—” Aragorn smiled and Halbarad followed, imagining a young lord scowling behind the decorum of his station, while Aragorn, a stranger in their midst, forbore his hostilities. “—but what troubled me was how little Denethor trusted in Mithrandir. The Enemy is gathering strength. When Denethor takes up the Stewardship I can only hope he will bend his ear to Mithrandir’s council.

“In the army I was quickly made captain, for I had skill in both sword and strategy. I spent much time in the southern fiefdoms, where the true power of Minas Tirith lies. Though the fields outlying the City are wide and fertile, they account for only a minor part of the City’s stores and coffers—the fiefs the lion’s share. But from the East the Orcs had returned, in legions of far greater numbers than I had ever heard of reported in the North, save by those who ventured into their strongholds in the mountains. Though Gondor held Osgiliath and its bridge, still orcs sometimes raided across the Anduin into the farmlands of Lossarnach and Lebennin—by what ways, water or land, we could not discover. In our campaigns against them even our victories seemed like a long defeat, for while we counted each loss bitterly, their ranks swelled higher each year, no matter how many fell by our strokes. My company guarded the Anduin bank for many years, and crossed it at need to clear or ambush Orcish settlements.

“But Gondor is truly besieged on all sides. For in the winter of 2985, the Haradhrim threat reared its head again. They sank a dozen trade ships between Anfalas and Belfalas, looting the contents and killing the crew. It was only the beginning, for in the years to come they grew bolder, attacking even Gondor’s navies.

“I deemed the threat too large to ignore. And thereby it came to be in the last year of my service that for once Denethor and I agreed. His spies in Umbar had said much the same, that there was a fleet of considerable size amassing in the Haven, to be set upon Hargondor soon. So a council was called, and in the end it was decided that Thorongil will lead a fleet south.

“So Thorongil did. We left from Pelargir. Small and fast ships. The crew I trusted, seasoned sailors out of Linhir and Pelargir who grew close to me. We sailed south towards the great Haven of Umbar, staying close to the coast until the Harnen, the river that marked Gondor’s southern border of old. The coast villages there were nigh abandoned, for the Umbar fleet harass the fishermen in their northern raids, and simple folk cannot make an easy living. Past it we steered far from the shoreline lest we were seen, drawing near only to check our bearings and guessing the rest by the stars. On the way we disguised our ships with the Corsair colors of sable and crimson, and changed our sails to match.

“The Cape of Umbar is closely guarded by the Haradrim fleet, but we knew from Denethor’s spies the locations of the guarding posts, and the stream of ships pouring into the haven proved a good cover, for there was much chaos about the bay waters. A great fog formed that night, which shielded us, and we passed into the haven without being discovered.

“We came upon them at night, when the crews were carousing in the city and the watch was barely manned, for few have brazenly attacked the Haven, save the open assault it mounted by the Enemy himself.

“One thing the spies of Denethor learned that proved useful was that the Umbar fleet, in some parts, were often tied together while at dock. This was in part because far more ships were anchored than could dock at the Haven, so that some ships had to nest abeam another ship as to reach the pier.”

“So we had men secretly set fire to the fleet, and then shot lit arrows into the further ships. It was gruesome work, and I found no love of killing this way—for these are not Orcs or other beasts bred by the Enemy, but Men. As we had caught them unawares we set ablaze to the amassed fleet before they could retaliate, and upon the piers of the haven I slew their Sea-lord.

“Though we dealt a much needed blow to the Enemy’s plans, when I returned to the City, I found that Denethor had gathered more lords to his sympathy, for despite our joint endeavor in Umbar he grew convinced that Ecthelion favored me above him. I think he feared I would usurp his Stewardship, for I suspect he had guessed nearer than most about my origins. I wearied of it, in the end, and bade the Steward grant me release from my post.

“‘Go if you must,’ he said to me. ‘By no oath are you bound to me, beyond that of a sellsword’s contract. Loath I am to see you leave—had I another daughter, I would have made you a match and persuaded you to stay. But I see that your path is before you, and Minas Tirith cannot hold you—at least not yet. May you return one day!’ And he gave me a new sheath for my sword, fashioned at his behest as a match to the silver Star of the North, though he did not know its provenance.

“Loath I was to go as well. For he had grown dear to me, much as a father. And I had come to love Minas Tirith. The blush of sunlight against its white walls, as the wind danced through the pennants in the Citadel! I wish you could see it, when in spring the flowers of Lossarnach are brought into the city, and Mindolluin shines in the Sun, even against the murky skies of the East.”

So saying Aragorn seemed to look afar, far from the small room of the Pony where he sat smoking, out towards the darkling world where a cold breeze rolled upon Bree-hill. In a small but clear voice he sang to himself, to a tune Halbarad half-remembered out of his own childhood:

Gondor! Gondor, between the Mountains and the Sea!
West Wind blew there; the light upon the Silver Tree
Fell like bright rain in gardens of the Kings of old.
O proud walls! White towers! O wingéd crown and throne of gold!
O Gondor, Gondor! Shall Men behold the Silver Tree,
Or West Wind blow again between the Mountains and the Sea?

And hearing this, Halbarad was moved, for indeed he did desired to look upon the strongholds of the Men of Númenor still living, as the ruins of the North may have been, once upon a time. He and all his folk. But he made no reply save to watch in wonder the eagerness in Aragorn’s face, like a flame kindled, for indeed the firelight leapt within his eyes.

“Alas, the time is not yet come. For even as I left the City, a great unease was in my heart. A task Mithrandir had asked of me, a dangerous errand that I dreaded, for it would take me to the borders of Mordor. I went forth from the Great Gates, and turned northward. For a time I tarried in the ruins of Osgiliath, in doubt. I slept in the broken shell of the great Dome, where Elbereth’s stars shone in place of the painted vaults. The silence of that place, in the early eve, even ruined and even amongst the defilement of the invading Orcs. It reminded me of the ruins of Annúminas upon the lakewaters, what the city might have been like ere wind had broken its gates and rain scattered its stones.

“A strange mood took me as I stood on the banks of the River, looking across the great bridge. Anduin flowed cold and swift, and there came no answer from the East. Ere nightfall I crossed the River into the lands they call Ithilien, though no folk had lived there since the eruption of Orodruin. Alas, for that land is still fair, filled with oak and elm and dark lebethron. I met with the Rangers who patrolled those woods and harried the servants of the Enemy. They knew me by name and rank. For a short time I remained with them, for their ways reminded me of my own people. They despaired of me going eastward. Even as I did, I came upon the land of the Nine.”

A wind flew by outside their window. A chill set upon the room.

“The Nine—ai! Alas for the evilness of our times that we should speak of them again. Nine mortal Men—”

“—doomed to die. So they abide, in Morgul Vale, they whose chieftain was the bane of Arnor and our sires. Ever they worked from the dark heights of Minas Morgul, the Tower of the Moon that they defiled. And when the Enemy declared himself, the Deadly Vale was filled redoubled fear. A cold bitterness gripped my heart that day—from which it took me a season to recover. For all that was once fair seemed to lay undone. Did I not know in my memory the ruins of Annúminas upon Nenuial, where foundered were her proud spires and drowned her founding stones? And had I not ventured even to his old outpost in Fornost Erain that was, and looked upon the remnant of his deadly works there? The Kingship seemed hid to me, and futile, if I could not gather even the lords of Gondor to my side.

“Such is the power of the Morgul Vale to bestir despair in the hearts of Men—I dare not speak more of it, Halbarad. Not tonight, not without the heat of the Sun on my breast, not even in Bree.”

At this Aragorn was silent, and of what errand or need he had in Morgul Vale, he would say no more.

The hour was very late. It was nearer morning than night and Moon was already westering above woods. The pipeweed was spent, its ashes lay scattered in the fireplace as Aragorn tapped out his pipe.

“Ere I went to Gondor I had always thought that the Enemy’s greatest weapon was his army—his towers, his lieutenants, his machines of siege. For that is what Gondor fears, and they are blinded by his pageantry of war. These are all that they can see of him.

“Nay, cousin. These are not his strength—its is ever treachery, deceit, fear. To rend apart those hearts that otherwise would be set against him in union. These have been his greatest weapons of old.”

There was a long silence.

Suddenly, Halbarad spoke. “I have a question for thee, cousin.”

“I hope it does not need a long answer, for I marvel that you are not weary yet.”

“Where is the Ring of Barahir?”

For a time there was no answer. For a moment Halbarad thought that Aragorn’s brief repose had turned into sleep. But when he looked upon Aragorn, he was gazing at the fire, unmoved.

“I had thought it would not escape your notice. I do not have it, not any longer. The Lady Arwen—it is in her keeping. So returned is the ring of Finrod to that fair house, for she is of the House of Finarfin also. I gave it to her on the eve of Midsummer, in the land of her mother’s people, under the grace of the Lady Galadriel.”

The fire crackled, and the light of its embers seemed to weave eagerly amongst the shadows. The Lady of Lórien. A stillness fell on the room even at the mention of that name. That must be the air about him that Halbarad could not name. Aragorn had walked in Lórien for a season, though among what grass or boughs, beneath what stars or leaves, Halbarad had never seen. Perilous was Lórien for any mortal that goes there, or so they say, the perils of love, of enchantment, and of memory and sorrow.

Aragorn spoke again, his voice clearer this time, unclouded by sleep, his face lit by the fire, his expression fey, as if a storm had gathered beneath a becalmed surface. “She told me that her choice is as Lúthien’s.”

The choice of Lúthien. What is a mortal man to an Elf? As a wind upon a mountain, a momentary music for its endless contemplation, a brief strain of color in a long twilight, however bright. Men’s lives were as a leaf, though emerald or gold, though protean or beautiful—on a bough leaden with countless leaves. And yet, Lúthien chose.

“And will the Lord of Rivendell grant you his blessing? For the hand of Lúthien the King of Doriath set a Silmaril as price—and that, perhaps, was not dear enough.”

“No price has he set—for he is not the gailor of his daughter asking for ransom. But he said to me, when he first found my heart’s intent all those years ago, that it is a grief that I ask him to bear, an infinite grief. Alas, that this grief has come between us, for he is to me as a father also. This is a grief I cannot ask of him, unless I make my destiny—to restore my house, to reunite the long-sundered kingdoms, to become King.” These words Aragorn said plainly, without emotion, as if they were merely facts laid out before him upon a table and not a long list of impossible tasks.

“That, too, is not dear enough, I deem,” Aragorn added.

Aye, what is grief to an Elf? To know the infinity of grief.

“But nay, we have not spoken of this, not anew, not when I was in Imladris as I returned. Though doubtless Lord Elrond knows full well what has transpired, for he reads many things in many hearts.”

“This is good tiding after a long and dark tale, my lord. I must congratulate you, though I wish I had better drink to make this toast,” and saying, Halbarad raised his mug of ale. They made a simple toast on the Pony’s beer, and Halbarad was joyed for his lord, for it was no secret that as the Heir of Isildur was fostered to manhood he met Arwen Undómiel, the daughter of Elrond. He dearly wanted to hear this tale, of a love long sought for and found, in Elvenhome east of the Sea where walked still one in who knew the Light that was before the Sun and Moon. Yet suddenly a grief was also in his heart, unbidden and gripping, and he found he may not be able to bear the tale or its telling.

At length Halbarad spoke again. “So it is! That though the Shadow falls on all of us, joy yet there should be. My lord Aragorn, will you be staying among your own people? It would ease my heart, to know that you walk with us again.” But even as Halbarad spoke, his heart misgave, and he knew that it was not to be.

“I have missed thee,” Aragorn said. “Truly, I have. I have yearned for thy company, and the company of our brethren, out there even among the worthy men of Rohan and Gondor. Yet I fear the road beneath me has not ended, and though I will remain in the North awhile, there are other lands that I must walk and other deeds I must do. Be comforted, kinsman, friend. For my part, even this talk with thee at the Pony, brief though it may be, will sustain my heart for a long while.”

And as Halbarad looked onto his chieftain, thinking of a reply, joy was in his heart again. Joy, he thought, and love, like a wound that shall never heal.

Then their speech turned towards other matters practical, of scouting and fencing, of patrols and movements. It was barely dawn when Halbarad left, having slept little.

That morning the Ranger rode out from the town gates westward, into the barrowlands beyond which lay the land of the Shire-folk. When the thin Sun streaked through the noon hour, and men gathered again in the common room of the Pony in want of a pint and a warm meal, the hobbit had finished clearing out the room on the eastern side, marvelling how long that strange and tall Watchers had stayed. By evening the rain had gathered again, and wind scattered the chimney smoke from Bree-hill, and westward the sky drove down unto the dark earth and shirred up its wood and heather with a looming hand.

--

Notes:

-Aragorn's stave is of course from The Two Towers, Book 3, Ch. 2. I would imagine this is a poem he wrote during his service in Gondor, and seeing the peaks of the White Mountains as he crossed into Rohan, it came suddenly into his memory.