Chapter 36. Epilogue

Some months later...

The Houses of Healing in Minas Tirith have wide, tall windows, for light and fresh air are two of the healers' most valuable tools. During times of trouble, great metal shutters were used to shut out the tumult of battle and flying missiles--flaming arrows, perhaps, or stones cast by the great war engines of the Enemy.

On this bright and sunny day, the shutters were folded back, of course, and the sunbeams shone in, lighting the room, for all the good it did. The man in the bed lay deep in gloomy thought with his forearm over his face, shutting out the light and its message of joy and life.

He had failed Elessar's trust once again.

A part of his mind argued that it was scarcely his fault in entirety, that circumstances... but no. That was the coward's retreat. He would rely on no excuses to lighten his responsibility for the matter.

But he was stuck here in this bed, in the blackest of humours, with no hope of escaping. He had tried, actually, but the healers had been expecting trouble and he'd not got far in his attempt.

It seemed he was fated to fail at all he tried.

'I've said "hullo" twice now, and you've not answered.' He knew that voice. Strange to think he'd wept, when he'd thought the hobbit's voice stilled forever, and now he did not want to hear the cheerful tones.

'Go away,' he said.

'This is a change. The last time I came you were overjoyed to see me.'

'Absence makes for a fond heart,' he said. 'So do me the favour of absenting yourself.'

'I think not,' Ferdibrand said, his voice coming closer.

There was a groan as the bed dipped to receive the hobbit's weight, and the man took his arm from his eyes. 'What do you think you are doing?' he asked.

'Sitting down,' the hobbit said, though his face was rather pale from the effort of climbing onto a man-sized bed with one arm in a sling. 'I only wish I did not have to climb up to sit down, if you take my meaning.'

The man put his arm back over his eyes. Really, what future was there for him? He supposed he could always go back to being a Ranger. Perhaps they needed Rangers here in the South.

How could he face Elessar?

'I have a surprise for you.'

'I hate surprises.'

'I know. Nevertheless, you'll have this one. I didn't haul myself up and down all those man-sized steps for nothing.'

There was nothing to be said in answer to this, and so the man said nothing.

'I see we are feeling rather sorry for ourselves,' the hobbit continued.

'I don't know about you,' the man said, 'but you needn't speak for me as if you were a healer.'

'Dastardly insult,' Ferdibrand observed airily. 'Calling me a healer! However... I think I'll forgive you. This time, anyhow.'

'My thanks,' the man said dryly.

'As a matter of fact, I don't just think I shall forgive you, but I shall, well and truly,' Ferdi said.

'Very kind of you,' the man said. 'Now that you've quite finished forgiving me, if you wouldn't mind taking your leave...?'

'It's this matter of duty and all that sort of thing,' Ferdi went on, as if the man hadn't spoken. 'But of course, with you so very ill these past few days, no one's spoken of it to you.'

'Duty,' the man grated.

'O aye,' the hobbit said casually. 'But of course when hobbits are involved things can get out of hand, and easily, too. I don't know why that is. Hobbits are a quiet folk, stick to themselves for the most part, "perishing dull" as the Thain says, but put them in the charge of Men and all sorts of out of the ordinary things are likely to happen. Why, in the time of the Troubles, some hobbits actually turned rebels, you know!'

'Spare me.'

'O yes, quite!' The hobbit lowered his tone then. 'Confidentially speaking, the King himself was a miserable failure when it came to keeping hobbits...'

The man started and pulled his arm down, to stare at the hobbit.

'O aye,' the hobbit nodded wisely, 'it's not common knowledge, but I have it from the Thain himself. Time after time...'

'I don't believe it.'

'Well of course the minstrels set it to music and smoothed the rough edges to make a nice story, but the truth of the matter is... Time after time, that particular Ranger failed in his duties, and if you were to talk to him about it, he'd be the first to admit it!'

'Time after time?'

'Sceptical, are we? "Time after time" I said, and such is the case! Why, from the very start, when Frodo put It on in front of a common room full of men and hobbits...'

'That was hardly Elessar's fault!'

'He sat there and let it happen, knowing what sorts of pressures might be asserting themselves against my cousin on the Enemy's part.'

The man wished to assert that it was hardly fair to lay such blame at the Ranger's feet, but the hobbit took the bit in his teeth and was off at a gallop.

'And that disastrous shortcut--I should think that a Ranger of all people should know that short cuts make for long delays! And any other number of missteps and errors on his part--it's a wonder he ever became King at all! It's a good thing he has a great deal of luck...'

The man could scarcely sputter a protest, choking as he was on his words.

'And the greatest failure of all--at Parth Galen,' the hobbit went on inexorably. 'He'll tell you so, himself...'

And the man was suddenly still, and silent. Yes. The King had told him so, himself, when warning him of the difficulties of conducting hobbits in the Wilderlands.

'You have a great deal in common with the King,' Ferdi went on, as the silence stretched out.

'Do I?' the man said dryly.

'Not just that you are close kinsmen, I mean.'

'We're both clumsy and incompetent and saved only by our extraordinary luck, I suppose.'

'There is that,' Ferdi acknowledged with a twinkle in his eye. 'And that you were chief of the Rangers, after Halbarad went south and Halbadhor was injured, just as he was chief of the Rangers...'

'A great deal in common,' the man said wearily, covering his eyes and wishing the hobbit would take the hint and leave him alone.

'And that he has a son, as you did...' Utter silence greeted this off-hand remark. Ferdi was not usually so awkward in his choice of topic.

'I'm an interfering little fellow,' Ferdi said. 'Or so I'm told.'

'Really, I cannot imagine anyone telling you such a thing,' the man said.

'O yes,' the hobbit said wisely. 'And if I am to have such a reputation, well, then, I certainly must do what I can to live up to it...' And raising his voice, he said, 'Come in, my dear; don't be shy!'

The man hastily brought his arm down again and, in alarm, attempted to sit up.

'Steady, Haldor,' the hobbit said. 'You know you're not to get up until...'

But a young woman had entered the room. Young woman? She looked to be no more than a girl, and yet she bore a sleeping toddler in her arms, perhaps two years of age, and a small girl clung to her skirts as she moved from the doorway to the bed and stood there, waiting.

The man sank down again, abandoning the effort to sit up, and blinked up at the young woman's face. 'Yes?' he said. 'Was there something you wanted?'

'Haldoron,' the hobbit said brightly. 'Allow me to present to you a most charming young lady; I met her in the marketplace, or rather, Farry did...'

The young woman bobbed slightly, careful not to disturb the sleeping child.

'Faelaseth,' Ferdi said, 'I would like you to meet Haldoron, Steward of Arnor, though he is at present on holiday.'

A smile lifted the corners of the young woman's mouth. 'I am charmed,' she said, her voice low and pleasant.

'The pleasure is mine,' Haldoron said without thinking, the polite response coming back to him though it had been quite some time...

'Indeed!' Ferdi said. 'Tell him who you are, my dear!'

Faelaseth sobered quickly. 'Perhaps you won't be quite so pleased,' she said, and swallowed hard.

'He doesn't bite,' Ferdi said. 'I believe Elessar has had all his teeth drawn, as a matter of fact...'

Haldoron rolled his eyes. 'If you would,' he said. 'I think you are being entirely too helpful at present.'

'Too interfering, you mean,' Ferdi said. 'Very well, then, I shall desist, but only if Faelaseth tells you what the sergeant told me...'

'The sergeant...?' Haldoron said, raising an eyebrow.

'Really,' the young woman said, shifting the toddler in her arms. 'I had hoped to meet you under completely different circumstances.'

When it seemed that the woman could not find the words to go on, Ferdi took to interfering once more. 'Allow me to present, Lord Haldoron, your daughter in law.'

'My...' Haldoron said, at a complete loss. 'I don't...'

'I heard all about your views on guardsmen and marriage from Haldorion,' Faelaseth said. 'You told him he should not marry until he had achieved enough rank and status to keep a wife and family, and I told him that I did not wish to wait until I was old, too old to bear children, perhaps... That has been a trouble in the White City for too long, and was one of the reasons why so many fine houses stood empty, and why there was such a lack of children in Minas Tirith before the coming of the King.'

'I...' began Haldoron.

'You leave a man to his own devices for too many years, and he might not marry at all,' Faelaseth said. 'Haldorion asked me to wait, and I told him I would not.'

'And so he married you,' Ferdi said with a definite nod. 'Sensible fellow.'

'And he never told...'

'He sent word to you, invited you to our wedding,' Faelaseth said, her shoulders stiff, her tone defensive. 'Six years ago, it was.'

Haldoron shook his head. 'I never had word,' he said. 'The message must have gone astray.' Or the messenger shot, by ruffians, just as his son had been murdered while relaying messages in the service of the King between newly rebuilt Tharbad and Sarn. Sometimes messengers went missing, and a search turned up no clue, whether wild animal or rogue, and thereafter messengers would go out in larger numbers for a time, but if things continued quiet there was no reason to continue such a wasteful use of manpower... 

'We thought from your silence that you disapproved,' Faelaseth said, 'and so he thought he'd wait to argue you into accepting me, when he received a permanent posting. For as a messenger, he travelled much, and only came to Minas Tirith a few times in the year...'

'And that is why...' Haldoron said.

Faelaseth threw back her head. 'I treasured every moment we had together,' she said fiercely, and then lower, she added, '...and if we'd waited, I would have nothing of him now, for he fell to a ruffian's arrow in the North-lands more than two years ago now, and never saw the face of his son...'

Haldoron felt as if he'd been punched in the gut. 'His son...' he whispered.

Faelaseth's face softened in a smile, and she gently laid the sleeping toddler on the breast of the injured man, and Haldoron's arms instinctively closed around the little one, holding him close.

'May I present your grandson, Halbrad,' Faelaseth said gently.

'Grandson,' Haldoron whispered, the tears coming to his eyes.

'And this is your granddaughter, Baineth,' Faelaseth said, drawing the little girl out from her skirts. 'Baineth, this is your grandfather, your father's father, from the North-lands.'

'This is my Fa-fa?' the little one said gravely.

'Yes, my love,' her mother said with a fond look.

The girl climbed up on the bed to drop a whisper-kiss on Haldoron's cheek. 'I love you, Fa-fa,' she said. 'Father said when I was big he'd take me to see you.'

'Baineth,' Haldoron whispered, and reached one arm to pull the little girl closer, even as he continued to hold her small brother... his grandson.

'Well now,' Ferdibrand said, slipping off the bed. 'I had better go and look into what sort of mischief the young hobbits have got up to, now...'

'You go right ahead,' Haldoron said, and looking up to Faelaseth he added, 'How I wish that message had not gone astray... for I cannot imagine, seeing you, that I could ever close my heart against the love of my son's life, or his...' His voice broke as he tried to say "children after him", and the tears of old grief and new joy that he'd tried to hold back at last found release.

The last sight Ferdi had, before he closed the door behind himself, was of tender-hearted Faelaseth bending to the bed to encircle the three of them, Haldoron and his grandchildren, in her loving arms.