Happy belated birthday, Meckinock!

Night Oft Brings News…

Gondor. February, 29; 3019. Faramir stands watch by the Anduin.

“Captain?”

Faramir looked up from his book and raised a questioning brow at Mablung. He knew his lieutenant well enough to pick the subtle amusement shining in the others’ eyes.

“Damrod is just returned, and he thought you might like to see what he found…”

With a suffering sigh, Faramir put the book aside and got up in a creaking of boiled leather. “It is better worth the trouble…” he warned, as he followed Mablung to the clearing where their small patrol had pitched camp. All those who were not on guard duty were gathered around the new arrival.

“Anything to report, Damrod?” he asked the tall, dark-haired ranger, dismissing his men’s salutes and studiously ignoring their cheerful expressions as they cleared way for him.

“All is calm in Osgiliath, Captain. No new patrols have set forth and none has entered the city. I left two men there and one more at the other side of the river, to bring back word from Anborn as soon as he returns…”

“Well-done. We must get ready to cross the river in all haste as soon as reports come. Anything else?”

“Well, yes, Captain…” For a man who had been fighting the shadow since before Faramir could wield a long sword, Damrod suddenly seemed strangely shy. “Actually, there is… I found these roaming the lands without the leave of the Lord of the City, so I had to slay them,” he finally managed with ill-concealed merriment, amidst the cheers and laughs from his companions, uncovering three well-proportioned rabbits that hung from his belt. “Do you think that we could cook them?”

“We have yew wood for the fire, Captain!” someone pointed out.

“And there is that small cave where we could cook them without much risk…”

Faramir shook his head and smiled, despite himself and the worry that had been gnawing at him for three days now. Listening to the hopeful tones in his men’s usually grim voices, he had to give in. “I am glad that you are so keen in carrying out the Steward’s orders, Damrod,” he began in a cold, stern voice, “even if you forget your own Captain’s in your dutifulness. I clearly recall that, when I informed you of the Steward’s new decree, I insisted that offenders were to be brought to my presence, alive, for judgement. This failure to comply with my orders cannot be overlooked, lest it becomes a habit among my men to slay strangers lightly, disregarding my instructions,” he said seriously, pointing at the dead rabbits. He cast a sweeping gaze at the faces around him to make sure that his point was clear enough. Satisfied by the suddenly sobered up expressions, he relented and smiled softly. “So I condemn you to cleaning duty until the moon is full. Now deliver your hunt into Hirluin’s more capable hands, we would not want you to spoil our dinner, would we?” he asked around, and laughed at the sudden burst of chatter and activity that took over the, until then, calm camp, while Damrod bowed in submission and surrendered his prize to his fellow rangers.

“At least they can now laugh about it,” Mablung offered cautiously as they watched the bustle around them.

Faramir sighed and bit back harsh words. “Remind me to reward Damrod for it,” he answered instead. Those were good men, he told himself, who relished killing no more than he did. Damrod had just tried to lift their spirits with a joke and had succeeded, and he should be grateful to the older ranger for that. Since the new decree had arrived -to kill all strangers found within their borders without leave from the Lord of Gondor- a dull, subdued, grim atmosphere had dampened the Ithilien rangers’ usually companionable mood. “He is turning us into the enemy!” he had heard his men complain in whispers for more than a week after the order had been issued. He had tried to lessen the impact, placing the burden upon himself by ordering that all trespassers who were neither orcs nor southron warriors should be carried before him for judgement, but the weight was still there, and was even more evident because the captain carried it all by himself. His men resented the Steward for that ruthless decree, he knew, and, from time to time, even he found it hard to dismiss the feeling.

“I wonder where that orc hoth was headed,” Mablung grunted worriedly. “I am half thinking of sending a scout to meet Anborn on his way back, what do you think?”

Faramir met the ranger’s grey eyes thoughtfully. They shared the feeling that a great assault was brewing, but there was something else, unnerving, in the strange quietness that seemed to cover the land.

“I have an ill feeling about this whole affair,” he admitted. “I believe that we should all cross the river earlier than planned if we are to keep close track of their troop movement…” He looked up to the setting sun and came to a decision. “Tomorrow I shall send a messenger to the city to inform the Steward. If the southrons are indeed joining the Enemy, then it is from the east bank that we shall hinder their approach.”  Mablung’s eyes were still fixed on his. “Send out a scout to Anborn, too, if you feel it necessary,” he granted. “But only after dinner!”

“Of course!” Mablung chuckled in gratitude.  “I would not make myself an enemy over the first hot meal in more than a week! I will send word when dinner is ready! By your leave…”

Faramir nodded his permission and watched his lieutenant disappear, surely to check that the fire was as smokeless as possible and that the meat was not overcooked. Shaking his head he returned to his secluded spot to gather his belongings. He picked up the leather volume that he had been reading and blew the dust that had piled on its first page. As he did, his attention was caught by the words written there as a dedication, in a firm, elegant handwriting that he knew well.  The ghost of a smile dancing on his tired face, Faramir closed the book, carefully rolled his blanket around it and pushed the bundle into his pack. He buckled his sword belt and donned his cloak and went to join his men in their well-deserved merriment.

                                                                          ~*~*~*~

The world slept at that midnight hour, and not even the sad rustling of reeds disturbed the soft gurgling of Anduin as it flowed past Faramir. Urged by a restlessness that he could not explain, he had claimed the first watch, hoping to find comfort in silence and solitude. For three days now he had been straining to hear again the blowing of a horn, stronger and closer, and the lack of news only served to increase his anxiety.

Forcing dark thoughts from his mind, he concentrated on his watch for a while. The night was oddly still, he noticed, and the pale young moon cast an eerie gleam over a land that looked strangely at peace. At that time, his men insisted, the souls of those who had died fighting the Shadow wandered the land and enjoyed its beauty. I cannot fault them, he thought, glancing beyond the waters towards the forested lands of Ithilien, where the dark silhouettes of tall trees towered over secluded glades that soon would be bursting with new blossoms, despite the looming war.

That was a beautiful land, despite the Enemy, a land that was worth loving and fighting for, Faramir told himself. His dour rangers, the grandchildren of the last settlers to flee that fairest of Gondor’s gardens, were farmers and hunters at heart, good men who loved the land and grieved to see it soiled by orc feet, and who were ready to sacrifice their lives in a fight that might have no end, out of love and out of duty, rather than honour or glory gained by arms.

He sighed and changed position, stretching his long legs. Only three nights ago, ere he heard the dim echo of his brother’s horn, he had dreamed of Minas Tirith renewed; a black standard flapping on Ecthelion’s tower on a sunny, clear spring morning, and a white tree on blossom in the king’s court. That such a day could ever come seemed a more distant dream as days passed and doom loomed. And yet Faramir only needed to take one look around to feel his hope strengthened by the beauty of the land of the Kings of the West. His glance fell south as he did, towards the towering dark mass of Mindolluin and the White City nestled against its mighty shoulder.

It seemed to him as if a bolt of lightning sparkled high on the slopes as he looked. Once; then twice. “A storm over the city” he told himself, and yet the sound of thunder did not reach him. Unexpectedly, another thought hit him. “The Steward locks himself up on Ecthelion’s tower at night and wrestles with the mind of the Enemy, and bends it to his will…”  Shrewd and bound to earth as his men were, they listened to, and repeated with relish, legends and old crone’s tales as if they were truths, and also enriched them with their own experiences, which always went to prove the truth of everything. So soon a satisfying explanation had been found for the strange lights that shone on top of the tower at night –and for the Steward’s untimely ageing.

The tale of Denethor’s nightly struggles with Sauron was one that Faramir had always dismissed as part of the legend that was being woven around his father…Until three days ago, when he had sought the Steward out to tell him about the dim echo of Boromir’s horn that he thought he had heard that morning.

Denethor had looked like an old spider wrinkled high on its net, waiting but not seeing, ready to unwound and leap at the slightest tug on its net. The memory of his father’s eyes then -cold, piercing and full of grief and knowledge- made him shiver.

“What do you see, Father, when you look around from your stone chair in the great hall of kings?” he wondered aloud, remembering the sharp, harsh words with which his father had dismissed him that morning after sending him to watch the western shore, refusing to share anything but a boding of ill with his troubled son. “Do you see hope, and a city renewed in a land of peace? Or rather war and destruction, the blare of trumpets and the clash of swords and the red fires devouring all, while bold warriors die bravely in a last stand under Boromir’s command?” As he spoke he felt a wave of resentment washing over him, a deep bitterness against that ruthless man who moved them around like pieces on a chess board; who cared not for the lives and souls of those under his command but only for deeds of war and his own power and glory.

As he sat back in despair, aghast at his own feelings, he felt something hard digging into his side. What he thought was a tree root turned out to be a corner of the book in his pack. Carefully, he eased it from his back and placed it safely beside him, by his waterskin. The book had been a gift from his father on his fifteen birth day, he recalled, after he got to learn that his scholarly second son had been for months nudging a book merchant in the fourth circle to find him a copy of Cirion’s “Lives of Kings.” Denethor had one in his private library and had gladly passed it on to Faramir, with an affectionate dedication. And that book had also been the excuse for long conversations between father and son, he suddenly remembered warmly.

“What possessed me?” he sighed, passing a hand over his brow and blinking as if suddenly jostled from a bad dream. Denethor was a good father, and a good man, bent but not beaten by grief and loss and duty; a man of honour and valour and the Steward of the City, to whom he had sworn fealty in need or plenty, in peace or war, in living or dying, until my lord release me or death take me, or the world end. The words of his oath filled him with renewed resolution. Whatever merciless decisions the Steward was forced to make in times of war, for the safety of the City and its people, it was his duty as son and captain to see them carried through to the bitter end.

“I swore that I would do what I could in your stead, Boromir,” he sighed then, as he made mental peace with his father. “And I will keep my vow. But I will not renounce to hope, brother; not even if Father does –or even you…”

So saying, he turned his eyes to the river and beyond, as if defying the Enemy with his words. He saw it then, or thought he saw it, a boat floating on the water, glimmering grey, a small boat of a strange fashion with a high prow, and there was none to row or steer it. Awed by that strange vision, he rose and walked to the bank, and began to walk out into the stream, until he glimpsed the dead warrior resting inside the craft…and recognized him. 

The End. 

A/N The last paragraph is partly quoted from Faramir’s words to Frodo in “The Window of the West.”