Chapter Eleven - Resisting

Faramir tried to stand but an Uruk-Hai claw pressed down on his shoulder and pushed him firmly into his seat.

“Prince Eldarion,” he repeated.

The boy made no sign to indicate he had heard him. Instead, he stood motionless, his eyes staring blindly in front of him. Wormtongue flicked his tongue like a stalking lizard as he hovered behind the King’s only son.

“He cannot hear you,” Saruman said.

Faramir gulped. “What have you done to him?” he asked.

“I would think you would recognise the signs of my work, Faramir,” Saruman answered with a complacent smile. “The young are easy to influence. Their minds are an open page for an Istar to write upon. The lad is supposed to be mucking about in the royal stables of Rohan, but he is long overdue to that patch of dirt. Now Eomer rides to search of the errant child; and after I have finished with Aragorn, the horse-lord shall also meet his doom. I will flush them all out like vermin and crush them. ”

“You would put Eldarion on the throne?”

“He is the heir. The people will accept him after the King perishes during his ill-fated mission to Mordor. And what of you, Faramir? Will you die with the Ranger-King or will you let yourself live and take your rightful place as Steward of Gondor, to guide your people as the true power behind this boy’s throne?” Saruman smiled in a way that no doubt was intended to convey friendship. To Faramir, the wizard looked as benevolent as a cat eyeing its dinner hungrily.

“I know where the true power would lie, Saruman. Everyone else would be mere puppets, yours to command.”

The wizard stretched his mouth thinly as he focussed on the motionless Eldarion. “There are levels and levels of power, my good Steward. I have said that I value you; you would be an asset to the Lord of Middle-Earth. Gondor would be yours to rule through the boy; you would defer to me alone. You could see Gondor thrive and prosper, grow rich in wealth and knowledge. You could bring Numenor back to the ken of its lost children.”

Faramir bit down an angry retort. Now was the time for subtlety rather than open defiance. “With all respect, Saruman; Numenor fell long ago. Do you really believe that I would betray my King for visions of past glories?”

“Yes I do, when I consider the alternative.” The wizard moved to stand behind Eldarion, embedding his long fingernails in the prince’s shoulder.

Mastering a sudden surge of fear for Aragorn’s son, Faramir raised his eyes to meet those of Saruman. “The alternative?” he repeated coolly.

“Imagine Aragorn’s horror when he enters the tower to find his son cruelly butchered and his former Steward standing over the lad’s body, drenched in blood and dagger in hand, babbling about a wizard and an army. You have already tried to kill the King once, Faramir, who would not believe that you would kill his young heir? The evidence of your guilt will be overwhelming. I imagine that Aragorn would be so enraged he would not even wait to take you back to Minas Tirith for execution, he would cut you down where you stood.”

No! Faramir wanted to shout his defiance and fury, but he knew he had to be careful, be patient and out-stalk this king of cats to save the precious royal fledgling. “And how would Eldarion’s death and mine help you to conquer Gondor?” he asked.

Saruman sighed. “It would call for more direct means than I wish to employ at this time. But my army would engage the King on his return journey. They would kill him and then sweep on to engage the Rohirrim. I would dispose of you all and then move in swiftly. The people would have no choice but to accept me. Gondor would be mine.”

“You have been planning this for a long time, I see.” Faramir was stalling, desperately trying to find a weakness in the wizard’s strategy. ‘Think, Faramir, think!’ he told himself. Something was wrong; something did not make sense in the wizard’s offer. Why was Saruman offering him a choice, offering to let him became his accomplice of his own free will, when the wizard had over-ruled his will with that cursed spell seven years earlier? And why was Saruman trying to seem so reasonable, so kind, while threatening the King and his heir? Unless. . . the answer hit him like a blow; he saw the opening.

“Eldarion is a useful tool; I would hate to discard him this early in the game; but I will if you force me to it.” Saruman replied genially, as he stroked the helpless boy's shoulder.

“If I force you to it, Lord Saruman?” Faramir said softly. “There is something I do not understand.” He did his best to look confused, and in need of the wizard’s superior wisdom. “Why are you offering me this choice? If I am as valuable to your plan as you say, why have you not simply bespelled me once more and had me do your bidding without question? Or. . . is it that you can no longer do so?”

Saruman dropped the mask of benevolence and grimaced at Faramir, showing his frustration and ire, only for one moment, but it was enough. ‘I have you now, king of cats!’ Faramir exulted silently behind his tense but quiet face. He held still.

The wizard backed away from Eldarion with a stomp and a swish of his robes. He stood by the window and gazed out as if mesmerised, hands clenched behind him. Faramir wished he could see what the wizard saw. Did Aragorn stand outside the tower?

Saruman cleared his throat. “I have not given you the entire truth; some misdirection was necessary,” he began. “I knew how difficult it would be for me to persuade you of the correct course. You are a loyal, if misguided subject of the King. I sought to influence your decision and in doing so I did overstate the sway I have over you.”

Faramir gritted his teeth. “I came here of my own accord?”

“The enchantment I put you under seven years ago is all but gone,” Saruman nodded.

“What do you mean ‘all but’?” Faramir pressed.

“It would take too much time for me to weave it again,” Saruman said, his predatory eyes evading Faramir’s cold stare.

“But you could redo the spell?” Faramir pushed. “Be fair, Lord Saruman. I will entertain your offer; but please do me the courtesy of telling the truth in this one detail.” Let the wizard think he was actually considering such nonsense; for Faramir needed time now that he had an inkling of the true state of affairs in Barad-Dur.

Saruman looked away from his intense stare. “I do not need the spell. I have you here, my prisoner. I hold a royal pawn in my grasp and your King marches into my trap. You are wise enough to make the right choice.”

Faramir closed his eyes once more and released a long sigh. So it was as he suspected, the wizard did not have the power he once wielded. Any relief that he may have felt at this disclosure was quickly tempered by this situation.

“So now it comes to me,” he finally muttered. “I betray either my King, or his heir; and Gondor falls whichever choice I make.”

“Gondor will not fall!” Saruman came swiftly to Faramir’s side, bending down so that his face was only inches away. “Gondor will rise and prosper because of you! You and your family will be safe and live well.” Then the wizard added, in a softer voice that was almost a whisper, “I will even let you kill the Worm for the discourtesy he has shown to Lady Eowyn.

“I need time,” Faramir said. “You cannot expect me to make such a decision now.”

Saruman looked annoyed. “Very well,” he accepted.

“Leave the boy with me; I wish to observe my future king,” Faramir proposed. Eldarion was the future King of all Gondor, whether Faramir was there to see him crowned or not; so it was truly no treason to speak of him as such. He prayed that Saruman would be flattered and believe that Faramir was actually contemplating joining him.

Surprisingly, Saruman agreed with a nod. “You are at liberty within the room,” he said. “But my tower is full of Uruks who will kill you on sight should you decide to venture outside.”

Saruman and Wormtongue left but the two Uruk-Hai remained with an order to allow the prisoners to talk. Ignoring them, Faramir stood up and struggled to move over to where the Prince still stood. The wizard's promise of 'liberty' did not entail untying the ropes that still bound his hands and feet, Faramir noted grimly, although one of the Uruks did move forward, untied his hands at his back, pulled them roughly to his front and retied them very tightly there.

“Prince Eldarion,” he said. He was surprised when he got a reaction, for he had not seen Saruman release the boy from his spell.

However, the boy turned his head and looked at him. “Lord Faramir?” he questioned. “Is it you? Where am I?”

As he looked at him, Faramir felt his heart lurch. The boy’s bewildered eyes were wide with fear, his complexion ashen. Faramir wanted to take him in his arms and comfort him as he would have done his own beloved children. He was unable to do so because of his bonds, so he signalled for the boy to sit down on the floor. He then, rather awkwardly, eased himself down next to him. They sat with their backs to the guards. As they talked Faramir, realising that his newly re-tied hands would be more difficult to undo, indicated the ropes around his ankles. Eldarion, out of sight of the Uruks, began to work on unravelling the complicated knots.

“How are you feeling?” Faramir asked in Quenya. Although the guards were at the other side of the room he did not want them to overhear his conversation with the boy. He knew that Eldarion had learned Quenya from both parents at an early age.

Eldarion shook his head. “Strange,” he said, responding in the same tongue. “What is this place?”

“Prince Eldarion, we don’t have much time for me to explain the details of what has happened. You have been under the spell of Saruman, the White Wizard; he is threatening your father. We are in Saruman's fortress in Mordor. You will have to trust me for the rest until we are free. Can you fight?”

The young prince looked even more confused. Looking past Faramir his eyes fell on the Uruk-Hai and they widened even further. “Not them,” he breathed. He began to shudder.

“It’s all right,” Faramir tried to soothe him. He realised that his raising the topic of imminent combat with the two Uruk-Hai had aggravated Eldarion’s confusion, hardly the effect he had desired. As far as he knew, the lad had never set eyes on either Orcs or Uruk-Hai; to him they must be fearsome creatures out of legend. Seeing such legendary horrors come mysteriously to life and hold him captive would indeed strike fear into the prince's young heart.

Suddenly an old memory surfaced anew in Faramir’s mind. He was thirteen years old. He was visiting his brother, at eighteen newly installed in the army and patrolling land to the eastern borders of Ithilien. He and Boromir had gone for a ride into the forest, for the older brother had recently been shown the wonders of Henneth Annun and he wished to share the spectacle with Faramir. They never made it because along the way they were ambushed by a band of orcs.

Despite the extensive combat training he had received as son of the Gondor’s ruler, Faramir had not been blooded in true hand-to-hand combat. His prior experience of killing had consisted of clinically drawing his bow against distant targets.

As the orcs fell upon them his brother waded into the fight immediately but Faramir delayed. He broke out in a cold sweat, he began to shiver uncontrollably and his body froze completely. He watched fascinated, as an orc moved towards him, its face contorted into a hideous scream and its sword rising to cleave him in two. Faramir knew exactly what he should do to defend himself but he could not. Panic pure and primal swept through him.

“Faramir!” his brother screamed, the alarm in Boromir’s familiar voice shaking him out of his paralysis. The second son had felt his body loosen and he reacted in exactly the way he had been trained, barely realising what he was doing. His mind, still completely disengaged, watched as he cut down the first orc and then moved on to kill the others.

After it was all over, Faramir’s legs had lost their strength. He fell to the ground and vomited for what seemed like hours as Boromir had clasped him on the back and hugged him.

“It is ever so, the first time, brother,” Boromir said sagely. “Do not be ashamed; you did very well.”

The incident only mattered because it was the first of many brushes with death that Faramir had experienced. What had saved him, what had been crucial to his survival during that battle, was his beloved brother’s support. Boromir had pulled Faramir from the fear-induced shock that would have killed him, and had been there to hold him when he had wept tears of horror after his first battle was over.

Faramir regarded Eldarion with sympathy, remembering that moment, that seemed so very long ago, of soul-wrenching terror, and his gratitude for Boromir’s presence, his brother’s voice and strong arms. This boy, who was thirteen now, almost two years younger than Faramir’s own son, Elboron, had to contend with his first actual battle situation while trying to recover himself in the aftermath of Saruman’s spell.

“Eldarion,” he began again, keeping in mind the confident words Boromir had used to salve his own fear all those years before. “Listen to me. We shall escape together. Look at me.”

The boy raised his head as Faramir continued. “I know you can do this. Are you with me?”

Eldarion shook his head. “I want to go home,” he murmured, protruding his lower lip like the child he still was.

“I know you do. I long for my home as well, but we can only return to our homes if we work together.”

“Lord Faramir, I- I don’t think I can.... I am no fighter.” Eldarion’s young face twisted with shame. “I can be of no help to you.”

Faramir smiled and spoke kindly but firmly as he looked into the scared eyes of his friend’s son. “I am not overjoyed at the odds we face either, my Prince. But a truly brave man does not deny his fear, he just refuses to let it overwhelm him. Take a deep breath, think your way through it. I know that in your heart you have the strength to survive this peril.”

Eldarion brightened a little. “Do you?” he asked. “My father always speaks so highly of you. I thought you would not understand what it is like for me. I have never wanted to be a soldier.”

Faramir nodded. “I will tell you a secret, Prince Eldarion, but you must promise not to disclose it, on pain of death. Do you so swear?”

“I do,” the boy said solemnly.

“I, too, never wanted to be a soldier and the first time I had to fight, I felt exactly how you do now. I believed myself to be neither brave nor strong, but somehow I was able to summon up enough of both attributes to survive that first and many more battles after that one. I know you can too. Now, I will not tell what we have discussed here, if you do not, is it a bargain?”

For the first time since Saruman had left the room Eldarion relaxed and flashed the attractive smile he had inherited from his mother. “It is, Lord Faramir.” They shook on it sombrely but with diffculty because of Faramir’s bound hands.

“What must I do?” the boy asked.

Faramir looked past him to the corner where the huge Uruks stood on guard.

“To be perfectly honest,” he admitted, “I am not sure. But I think we need to get rid of those two. Forget all you have been taught about honour and fair fights; go for their most sensitive parts and just keep hitting. Meanwhile, please get these ropes off of me!"

Faramir knew their best chance of killing the two Uruk-Hai inside the room was to strike hard and fast and surprise them. He prayed that Eldarion could hold his own until Faramir freed his hands with the weapon he would hopefully get from one of the Uruks. Faramir knew that in his prime, he could have taken both Uruk-Hai, though never as magnificent a hand-to-hand fighter as Boromir, he was strong and fast enough to kill several times that number of orcs. But it had been many years since Faramir had been in constant practice of fighting and killing as an active Captain of Rangers in an ever more hopeless war. Still, he had not been idle these past fifteen years or more. His hunted with his bow and practiced constantly, albeit on targets that were not Uruk-Hai. He and Eowyn sparred several times a month for pleasure and exercise; he smiled wryly to himself. Eowyn did not have as much upper-body strength as a man or an Uruk, but she more than compensated with the controlled ferocity of her sword-arm. And in the past few years, Faramir had sparred regularly with his sons; first Elboron, then the younger boys. Would it be enough? As family members, they had always held back from true violence. At least he knew himself to be physically very fit; still possessing the endurance and quick reflexes of a younger man.

It would have to be enough for the fight that probably awaited him once they won free of this room, Faramir resolved. If he could just get to the door of the tower, get the boy out and running, give him that chance for freedom. . . He had to save Eldarion, at any cost. It was bad enough that he had fallen to Saruman's sorcery and attacked his King seven years ago, but to allow the King's son to suffer a similar fate, or be hurt or killed; no, he would die first! Faramir vowed. At least he had not seen bows or arrows among the weapons carried by the Uruks. The thought of Aragorn's son dying like Boromir was almost unimaginable. Faramir prayed that his own son was safely in Minas Tirith along with his mother. He did not want to picture them otherwise, not right now.

Eldarion gave one last tug on the ropes around Faramir's ankles and the last knot that tied them came undone. Faramir flexed his legs, then rubbed his feet and ankles to restore his circulation as quickly as possible. He heard a growl and an exclamation from the guards; looked their way and saw that one of them seemed curious about what the prisoners were doing. Another few seconds and the Uruk might come over to see what the prisoners were talking about; so time was short. His hands were still bound; the knots were tighter than those of the ropes that had tethered his feet. And the Prince had no knife. Faramir had to make his move now.

"Good work, my Prince" he told the boy. "Now, help me up as if my legs are still bound".

Faramir rose, clutching at Eldarion's strong arm for support. He turned towards the two Uruk-Hai who stood between them and the door. He noted that the Uruks were not girded for battle; they wore leather surcoats over cloth tunics rather than metal armour; and their grotesque heads were unhelmed. Only one had a sword, the other had a dagger belted on his waist. If Saruman had an army, it was not very well supplied.

"They are larger than we are, but slower and less flexible", he alerted his charge. "Your father once cut through a group of over fifty of them when an Uruk-Hai band ambushed the Fellowship. He killed at least twenty Uruks, although he wore no armour. He fought them by fighting like an elf, moving swiftly, turning and leaping so they could not catch him. Imagine it like a dance." He smiled at Eldarion, who he knew was an excellent dancer. And blessed the King in his thoughts for telling him not only of the events surrounding Boromir's death, but also the details of Uruk-Hai musculature and fighting style.

Facing the Uruks, Faramir addressed them in the common tongue. "We would like some food now; I am certain that your master wants his guests well- served. Fetch us some venison and ale."

He gestured towards the crudely made wooden table in the middle of the room. As he had hoped, the Uruks were confused and annoyed, but not suspicious; and approached, probably intending to beat him for his demand.

Faramir struck first! "Go left", he shouted as he charged the first Uruk and kicked the creature's knees, then punched the nose with his bound fists as the monster wavered. The Uruk went down in a most satisfactory heap.

Eldarion set himself between the second Uruk and Faramir, weaving around the monster as he had been advised, luring the Uruk away from the older man. Faramir had time to grab the dagger from the downed Uruk's belt and finish it with a quick cut of its throat.

But Eldarion's time had run out. The boy tried to kick the surviving Uruk as Faramir had the first one; but this Uruk was ready for him. He sidestepped, seized Eldarion's extended foot, pulled him close, then took the struggling boy by the waist, lifted him into the air, and threw him at Faramir.

The two Gondorians collapsed. Heart racing, Faramir heard a sickening thump as the boy hit the floor, his legs tangled with Faramir's limbs. The force of the throw had turned Faramir halfway around; he struggled to get his bearings. The prince did not move; had he hit the ground head first?

Faramir gasped in surprise as he was pulled from Eldarion's body. The Uruk had come up behind him! Faramir was seized in a choke-hold by a hugely muscled arm, then thrown across a flat surface, it must be the table. The dagger fell from his still bound hands to the floor with a metallic clatter. Faramir tried to rise, to move, anything! But the Uruk was above him, pinning him to the table with Faramir's hands trapped underneath him.

Faramir struggled as well as he could but his vision was tinged with scarlet acquiescing to black and he knew that he did not have much time. The Uruk's hands pressed tightly around his throat. He was vaguely aware of a strange gurgling that must have been coming from his own throat and his head was thundering.

Deep inside Faramir desperately tried to fight but every part of his body seemed to scream in defeat as his heart itself lost strength. The thought that ‘it should not end like this’ occurred to him when suddenly something was smashed over the head of the Uruk-Hai above him. The grip on Faramir’s neck loosened to be replaced by a terrific weight on his chest. Faramir began to choke as his lungs commenced their action again. Feebly he rolled over, causing the dead weight of the Uruk-Hai to fall from him. He lay on the table breathing deeply, retching violently and his body racked with cramping pains as the oxygen flowed around it once more.

Finally he felt strong enough to lift his head but he still had to wait long seconds until his eyes managed to focus on the scene in front of him. When they did he let out a gasp of surprise.

Eldarion still lay where he had fallen. The two Uruk-Hai were both sprawled on the floor, one lifeless and the other, who had nearly strangled him unmoving with a bleeding head wound.

His eye then fell on his rescuer. He stood before Faramir regarding him with an unreadable expression on his face and a hammer in his hand that dripped blood on to the floor.

“Wormtongue?” Faramir muttered.