Chapter XXXI: The Border-Watch

There was a salient moment in a battle-charge when the vanguard passed the point of no return. At that moment retreat was no longer possible. There was no longer the chance to wait, to weigh one's options, to order the assault. The opportunity to turn back was lost, the opportunity to halt was lost, and all that the captain could do was drive his men onward, forward, into whatever uncertain fate awaited them. Wary or weary or wounded, they had to move forward – to move forward or to perish, for there was no other choice.

This thought alone filled Aragorn's mind in the interminable span of time during which he stumbled on, dragging himself from one wearisome step to the next. Now and again the cord about his wrist grew taut enough to tug against his thumb and so he knew that his prisoner still walked with him, but the truth was that he was almost beyond caring. He could think no further than the next step, could remember no more than the last. The world had narrowed to a slender column of muted agony, three paces in length and no more broad than his lean shoulders. He could not recall giving the order to march; he could not anticipate the battle ahead. All that he could do was charge forward, blindly, long past the point of no return.

So lost was he in his exhaustion that he did not notice when the dull creaking of dead grass beneath his boots gave way to the whisper of fallen leaves. Instinct alone wove him to and fro between the great boles of the trees that surrounded him now. He was conscious only of the swaying of his heavy head with each stride, of the smouldering ache in his spine, of the dim bolts of pain that shot up from his heels each time they found purchase to pull him a little farther forward. His vision was obscured by a rime of weariness so thick that he could not be certain whether he walked in starlight or sunlight or befogged twilight. Now and then he attempted to loose the muscles of his jaw so that his teeth would cease to trouble him, but each time the tension crept back as though it was his bite that kept him anchored in this intolerable half-waking state.

The first voice did not even snag upon the shroud of dumb suffering. The second reached his ears, but was so garbled by his wandering wits that he dismissed it as the groaning of a winter-stiffened branch. The third he heard but could not understand, much less obey.

It was the shrill whistling of an arrow making its passage perilously close to his nose that finally stopped him, his body drawing stiffly up as his mind was jolted from its exhaustion in a brief flaring instant like the passage of lightning across a dim sky.

'Daro!' the voice cried again, and at last he was able to comprehend the word. Halt. Those that followed in a rapid, imperious patter he could not immediately follow, for the speaker was using the dialect of the Galadhrim and Aragorn found himself incapable of an instantaneous translation.

'… once, for we do not offer a second warning;' the Elf was saying when at last the language snagged in the Ranger's memory.

'Perhaps he does not understand your speech,' a second voice, that of an Elf-maiden, ventured. In the Common Tongue she said; 'Do not move, stranger, for you are in peril.'

That much the arrow had made plain, Aragorn thought, but even in his disordered state he knew better than to speak impertinently to an armed sentry – particularly one he had already unwittingly disobeyed at least thrice. He blinked his eyes rapidly in an attempt to clear them of their mist, but dared neither to raise a hand to chafe them nor to turn his head in search of the two who had spoken. He tried to offer greeting, but the words would not rise to his lips. In any case he was uncertain that his throat would open to grant them passage.

'Have him state his name and his business,' the first voice demanded. 'And ask what manner of creature it is that he leads like a cur on a rope.'

'Stranger…' the woman began, but at last Aragorn rallied his wits enough to loosen his tongue.

'I speak your language,' he said, the words crackling and catching hoarsely. His accent was imperfect, he knew, but in his exhaustion he could not improve it. 'I am an Elf-friend and a traveller who has walked these lands before.'

There was a surprised hush and someone murmured words that were just beyond his hearing. Aragorn's sight had cleared a little, but all that he saw were the trees before him, towering silver pillars in the cool light of the afternoon. He did not presume to move his head to look around, for he had been told not to move and an understanding of his peril was slowly piercing the fog of his consciousness.

'What is your name?' the first Elf demanded. Aragorn suspected it was he who had fired the warning shot. 'What is your business? What is that creature you lead?'

'I am on business for Gandalf the Grey,' Aragorn said. He had to pause and cough a little to clear his dry throat. 'Mithrandir. For Mithrandir. The creature is my captive: long have we sought him and I have found him at last, and I must bring him to the halls of Thranduil in Mirkwood as was agreed.' He glanced down at Gollum, who was hunched beside his boot staring wide-eyed to the left. Aragorn restrained the urge to follow his gaze. 'It was agreed,' he echoed hollowly.

'Your name, stranger. Your name!' the sentry ordered.

In a moment of greater rationality he would have offered it without question. The folk of Lothlórien were certainly worthy to be trusted even with the gravest of secrets, and he had indeed been thrust upon their succour before and might even be remembered by them. Yet in his present state good sense eluded him, and he fell back upon long habit instead.

'My name is of little moment,' he said. 'I am a traveler and I am weary. I ask only a night's shelter and safe passage along the border of your land on my northward journey.'

There was a discontented hiss from the first Elf, and an almost imperceptible rustling in the undergrowth. Gollum shrieked and scrabbled against his captor's leg, but Aragorn had no time to reflect upon that. At once he was surrounded by tall, lithe figures clad in shades of woodland green and grey. There was a flash of Elven steel in the sinking sunlight. A hand closed upon each of his arms above the elbow. Others moved swiftly over his body, pawing at his clothing and feeling around his belt. The bare hunting knife was removed from its awkward place at his side. Someone turned down the tops of his boots. His pack was taken from him and he could hear nimble fingers rummaging through it.

'You have trespassed too far already for safe passage along our borders,' the first Elf hissed in his ear. 'And we do not offer shelter to any vagabond who may chance to stumble where he is not wanted.'

Stupid with fatigue, Aragorn still could not make sense of the situation. 'I do not see why,' he said, sounding even to himself like a petulant child but somehow powerless to help it. 'I am obviously no threat to you, having been taken so easily.'

Somewhere to his right there was an ill-concealed snort of laughter, but the hold on his left arm tightened painfully.

'Impudence will avail you nothing,' the border-guard snapped. There was a sound of shifting leather as he signaled to his comrades. 'Bind him hand and foot,' he commanded. 'And the other thing…'

'By foot?' the lady asked, distaste apparent in her voice. 'It seems otherwise quite... well-secured.'

'Have a care,' Aragorn said in a vacant singsong that seemed almost to come from a will other than his own. 'He bites.'

Another silence followed this pronouncement. It was a third voice, male, who broke it at last. 'Mayhap he is mad?' it suggested. 'A madman and his strange companion, wandering thither and yon with no care for where he stumbles?'

'I think not,' the she-Elf said, a ponderous but puzzled tone in her gentle voice. 'He has not the light of madness in his eyes, and…'

She was in his sight now; a slender and well-muscled shape in the garb of an archer with a quiver of arrows at her shoulder and a longbow in her hand. Her hair was dark and glossy as obsidian, and twisted into twin plaits down her back. As she stared at him her eyes narrowed and seemed suddenly misted with bewilderment.

'Who are you, stranger?' she said. 'It seems that you are known to me.'

Despite his weariness Aragorn was quite certain that she was not known to him, and he was far too experienced in keeping his own counsel to be trapped with such tactics. The dim voice that protested that he was indeed mad to be so recalcitrant with these particular interrogators could not even be heard over the thrum of weariness that sounded in every nerve.

'Bind his hands, Calmiel,' the first sentry commanded again.

She turned upon him, brows furrowed. 'He is a wanderer, unarmed and obviously impoverished,' she protested. 'Ought we not to make him welcome and offer what surcease we can? I ask you, Aithron, does he seem a threat to you?'

The leader made a sound halfway between a laugh and a groan of disbelief. 'When will you learn?' he demanded. 'All these long years among us and still you behave like a marchwarden of Imladris. Would you have us bear him up in honour and carry him into the very heart of our realm? Shall we seat him at the high table, perhaps, so the Lord of the Valley can hear his tale and advise him on his errantries? And what of the foul creature he leads? Bathe it in rosewater and clothe it in silk, I suppose. We do not take in the beggars of the world in this land, lady, and that you know full well.'

Aragorn saw the Elf-maiden stiffen, squaring her shoulders and drawing thin her lips. 'He is haggard and wayworn; both look half-starved,' she argued. 'The Man is nearly dead on his feet with weariness; not even a madman would speak so imprudently else. And the creature…' She looked down and shuddered, then fixed her eyes searingly to Aragorn's left – presumably upon the face of her captain. 'Tell me, is there no room in Lothlórien for pity?'

'Pity is not mine to mete out,' Aithron said coldly. 'My duty is to guard these borders from all who approach; to admit none but as the Lady has decreed; and to keep things such as that—' Here the hand on Aragorn's arm tightened as though its partner had been thrust forward in a fierce, disdainful gesture that was surely meant for Gollum. '—far from our sanctuary on penalty of death.'

'They have not passed so far over our borders as that,' the lady said. 'We might offer them provender and turn them back.'

'We do not have the bastion of the mountains to protect us,' argued Aithron. 'Nor defensible hills, nor the great guarding Loudwater. We do not have the luxury of turning strangers back; not until we know their names and their purposes. Now bind his hands, or return to your idyll in the West and leave those of us who must dwell in uncertainty to do our duty.'

'Bind me if you will,' Aragorn mumbled, raising his hands and holding them out before him. 'Only keep watch over my captive and let me sleep. I have travelled… travelled…'

His mind was wandering again upon the edge of nothingness, and his legs were trembling. Having halted at last he did not think they would bear him up much longer, and he was quite certain that no will he might summon from out of his fading mind would induce them to walk again.

'I have travelled many leagues…' he said, still trying to finish his thought. 'If you will keep watch over my captive perhaps I may sleep. He is swift and he is sly… you must not take your eyes from him, not even for a moment. Mithrandir…'

'He names the Grey Pilgrim,' the Elf holding his right arm said. 'For his sake perhaps we should be cautious.'

Aithron made a dismissive gesture that danced in the corner of Aragorn's line of sight. 'Whom do you fear most?' he asked. 'Mithrandir and his discomfiture, or the spies of the Enemy?'

The awkward silence spoke to uncertainty, and Aragorn felt a mad desire to laugh. Clearly Gandalf's temper had been felt even in this clement land. Something of this urge must have shown on his face, for Calmiel leaned in towards him again, compassion upon her face.

'If you have some further offer of credence,' she said softly; 'name it now and perhaps we may treat differently with you. Who are you that Mithrandir should entrust you with his prisoner? What is your name?'

For a moment it hovered upon his leaden lips, but then the voice of caution fanned into a fire of paranoia by the long days of unbroken wakefulness stopped him. He knew this tactic too: a gentle voice coaxing forth what the commanding one could not. He shook his head.

'And what is that but proof of sedition?' demanded the captain. 'Bind them, I say, and then word can be sent onward and further instructions obtained.'

One of the other Elves bent, and Gollum's shriek morphed into a snarl. He gnashed his scanty teeth and the sentry drew back a little, then moved again to seize him.

'Have a care; he bites!' Aragorn snapped, far more earnestly than he had before. He stooped so swiftly that he startled the two who were holding his arms and they lost their grip. His hand closed on the halter just short of Gollum's neck and he shook it. 'Be still!' he snapped in the Common Tongue. 'Be still or I will gag you again.'

'Elveses!' Gollum wailed, the toes of one foot clawing against Aragorn's boot. 'ELVSES!'

There was a swift movement above them and Aragorn felt his back arch as if of its own accord to shelter his prisoner. His dim reason bristled and his pulse quickened. If they tried to bind Gollum, if they even touched him he would lash out and he would bite, and if he bit one of the Elves their lives might both be forfeit: Gollum's for the attack and his own for bearing the hostile creature hence. No evoking of the name of Mithrandir would save them then.

'No,' he said, and for the first time the edge of command was in his voice. 'No. I will bind him. I have bound him before. There are cloths in my pack that have served the purpose. Will you give me leave to take them?'

'We have rope,' Calmiel said. Gollum wheezed and whimpered and shook his head violently.

'Not for his mouth,' Aragorn said. The corners of his own lips prickled at the thought of it. There were some cruelties that once experienced could never be inflicted. 'Whatever may come to pass I will not put rope in his mouth.'

The Elf-maiden looked towards her commander and he must have given her some sign, for she bent to pick up Aragorn's broken pack where it had tumbled from his grip. She dug inside, fingers stiff with distaste, and drew out the bundle of wool strips. He took them from her and offered the plug of cloth to Gollum.

'If you do not take it willingly,' he said, once again in Westron; 'then they shall compel you.'

Gollum looked at his hated jailor and then up at the circle of five about them. He shuddered convulsively and then, incredibly, unloosed his jaw like a serpent about to swallow a rabbit and allowed Aragorn to insert the gag. He bound it as gently as his fumbling fingers could manage and then tied his prisoner's ankles. His hands, of course, were well secured.

'Now bind me if you will,' Aragorn said wearily, raising his wrists as far as his stiffened shoulders would allow and curling his cold hands into loose fists so that he might be most easily secured. 'Only give me your word that you will watch over him while I sleep.'

A length of soft grey rope was looped over his arm. The feet of the Elves around him swam and blurred before his fading eyes. The lady set about knotting his wrists together with hands that shamed his own fumbling. Someone tugged at his planted foot and he slipped it back beside the one on which he knelt. Behind him another of the border-guard began to bind his ankles. The murmur of voices conferring in the language of Lothlórien swam above him, but he could not quite make sense of the words until Aithron knelt beside him, once more closing a firm fist on his arm.

'Your name, stranger,' he demanded again. 'We will have your name ere you will be permitted to sleep.'

Aragorn raised his eyes stupidly, unable to quite make the face before him come into focus. His balance faltered and he slipped onto his right hip with a soft thud, his bound legs curled beside him. 'Watch him,' he begged. 'Please, will you watch him that I may sleep a little?'

Long hands seized his shoulders and shook him. 'What is your name?' the captain repeated.

His eyelids dipped slowly downward, and he felt his lashes crackle against the grime ground into his skin. Off his feet at last, with the last of the afternoon sun falling on the side of his nose, he did not think that anything could keep him from sleep now. Only the need to secure a promise kept him from slipping away entirely.

'You must,' he croaked. 'You must watch him so that I may sleep.'

'Tell me your name and we will watch him,' countered the Elf.

Relief almost beyond imagining washed over him, and Aragorn felt tears of gratitude brimming in his eyes. He had reached a safe place at last, a place where he might lie down and rest a while without fear, without danger, without negligence. And he dearly needed to rest. He craved slumber now more than he had ever longed for anything in his life, save only breath in the desperate deeps of Anduin. If his name was the price that bought it for him, it was cheaply given.

He opened his mouth and hesitated. In his muddled half-drowsing state he could not recall which name they wanted to hear. He could not remember which of his many names would buy him the safety he so desperately needed, the safety to sleep. Not Strider, surely, for when had Strider ever been safe? Thorongil, then, with his trusted lieutenants and his scores of loyal men who for love of his name would have sailed away into peril in an enemy port. Yes, they would let him sleep a little… but that was long ago, and many long leagues away. Perhaps Aragorn, for it was the name that would gain him shelter in the hidden villages and lonely farmsteads of the North. A lady of the Dúnedain would gladly let him rest, hushing her children that the Chieftain might sleep – and such a lady would be match enough for Gollum, bound as he was. Yet he knew, indistinctly, that he was far from the empty northern lands where his people dwelt. What name would buy him safety here, here among the Firstborn?

'Estel,' he whispered as his body gave up its last valiant effort to remain upright and his tortured mind slipped away. 'My name is Estel.'