Note: When I finished the previous chapter, I was of two minds as to the structuring of this one. The decision was impossible to make at the time, but it clarified itself of its own accord yesterday. Some may find this all redundant, but I maintain that it is not. One reason is of course the long lag between updates, which may make it useful for some readers. More importantly, I think it is fascinating and valuable to see what is included and what is omitted in this, the most complete telling of the tale that Aragorn ever offers – except perhaps once. Enjoy!

Chapter LIX: The Wizard and the Weakling

His back was to the door. His back was to the door and someone had just burst through it in purpose and wrath. His back was to the door!

Instinct and inbred reflexes awoke before any more analytical faculties, and Aragorn knew only that he must turn, must rise, must defend himself. To be taken unawares in sleep was a dread doubtless known to all hunted men, and Aragorn never let his guard lapse entirely in the wild. But here he had slept deep, deep and careless, and now something was upon him.

A sharp twist of his hips sent him rolling from side to back, and he drove his right elbow into the mattress to keep from landing agonizingly on his healing wounds. But of course he was unaccustomed to lying on such a surface and he miscalculated. The force of the landing was less than it might have been, but the bright pain blinded his bleary eyes and robbed his arms of their strength. His cracked lips parted in a voiceless gasp of misery and he sank down deeper into the bed, only increasing the pressure on the claw-marks. A deeper, more nauseating pain shimmered up from his kidneys through his viscera.

There was a rustle of woolen cloth and a low tock of wood on flagstone before the door swung closed again. Then a brisk voice, affronted and half-teasing, rang out.

'I have ridden with all haste from the South afeared for the life and limbs of the Hope of the Dúnedain, and what do I find? The mighty right arm of the North himself, lying like a slugabed in the midst of the afternoon!'

Aragorn was still trying to rally his wits while his mind kept insisting that he must rise. 'Oh,' he managed breathily. Then in a long exhaling sigh made ragged with hoarseness; 'Gandalf.'

'O, Gandalf indeed,' the wizard snorted. 'Do you have any idea what you have put me through these last days, you troublesome Ranger? When last I saw you it was with your feet set for Mordor, and then—'

As this tongue-lashing commenced, Aragorn had reclaimed enough of his reason to convince the more elemental parts of his mind that it was unnecessary to mount a defence, at least in body. When he let the quaking tension ebb from his arms and shoulders he found himself better able to focus on forming words – though still they came slowly.

'The missive from Lothlórien… reached you, then,' he said softly.

'Ai, it reached me!' Gandalf thrust his staff into the crux of the mantelpiece, flung his garments out around him, and sat with a huff, planting two mud-caked boots on the low stool. He wafted a hand distractedly. ' "Lord Aragorn has come out of Dagorlad, bearing with him the creature you sought. A wretched thing it is, and spiteful. Sly and murderous he called it, and he did not tarry—" Will you sit up, Man, and greet me properly? It is like talking to one of the effigies in Rath Dínen.'

Aragorn tightened his jaw and mustered his strength. With his left heel for leverage, he got up on his elbows and braced his unscathed left shoulder blade against the wood of the headboard. All this demanded an exertion of dour determination and came not without pain, but it was worth both for the small dignity of being able to look his friend levelly in the eye.

Gandalf was disheveled and trailworn, his warm garb rumpled with long wear and his hat limp and misshapen on his head. The hems of his robes were wet and begrimed to the knee, and splattered liberally with mud well above the belt. There was mud in his beard, and even fine flecks of it in his bushy brows. The wise lines of his face were carven more deeply than usual, and there were dark shadows beneath his eyes.

'Greetings, Gandalf the Grey,' Aragorn said with tired good humour. 'My lodgings are simple, but the fire burns bright. I have none of the Elf-King's fine wine to offer, but there is water fresh from a deepling spring.'

Gandalf grunted, eyes still fixed almost unseeing on the middle space between them. It was evident that he too had had a long road. 'So you have found him at last, O stubbornest of mortals,' he said. 'The bedeviling Gollum has been secured.'

'He has.' The words caught in his throat, snaring on dim unbelief rather than coarsened vocal cords. Aragorn wet his roughened lips and tried to smile. His pains were settling into manageable cycles again, and his breathing eased. 'I can say no more than that, I fear. There is little love between us, and all my charms could not avail me in extracting useful knowledge from him.'

Now Gandalf did lift his eyes, breaking the heavy crust of his own weariness. 'It may be that I have useful knowledge enough for both of us,' he said. 'My own hunt has proved fruitful, and – hammer and tongs, boy, what have you done?'

With the Dwarvish oath, his boots struck the floor with thunderous force. He launched forward in the chair, gripping the arms. Glamdring's scabbard, already wedged awkwardly against the wizard's leg in his sudden descent, squealed shrilling against the floor as it snagged. Gandalf's keen eyes were pinions now, pricking over Aragorn's face and shoulders, down to t he ungainly bulge of his bandaged ankle, and back again.

'What have you done?' Gandalf said again, but now his voice was muted and hoarse with horror. Aragorn felt a heat of shame creeping up behind his ears, though he doubted he had the blood to flush. What a sight he must make, even now, to so consternate the world-wise wizard.

'I brought my captive North as best I could with the resources to hand,' he said quietly and with wary rigidity. He did not want Gandalf to make much of this, and now that seemed unavoidable.

'From Dagorlad to Lórien and north,' Gandalf muttered, tightening his grip on the chair but mercifully casting his eyes away in thought. 'Bypassing Dol Guldur, no doubt.'

'Even so,' said Aragorn. 'I assume you came by a more direct route.'

'Aye,' said Gandalf. 'It seemed only prudent to come with all speed, though the way cost me three days backtracking to Osgiliath. Even in these days it seems a wizard on an Elven steed is not a tempting target.'

Aragorn nodded thinly, his unasked question met. Gandalf had overtaken him so swiftly, despite his long lead, because he had gone mounted and not on frozen feet and broken boots. 'I am glad the Galadhrim found you ere you turned too far westward.'

Gandalf's lips twitched tortuously beneath his beard. 'I very nearly did not,' he said softly. 'I should have gone East to venture that which I have never yet dared. But the news I had to bear was too grave to be waylaid for any bond, even one so dear. Even that might not have stopped me, save that the last word I had of you put you on a northward road, however ill-equipped. I elected to have faith in your capacity for survival.'

Aragorn frowned. 'How is this?' he asked. 'You had word of me ere the news came from Lórien?'

He twisted, trying to reach behind to prop up a pillow for his aching back, but this sent a spasm from tale to nape and made him stiffen involuntarily. He could feel an insidious nether burning as his battered organs tensed with his spine.

'Let me do that,' Gandalf said brusquely, getting to his feet and stumping the short distance to the bedside. 'Can you lean forward a moment? Grab hold of my arm.'

Aragorn did the former, but the latter he deemed unnecessary. He curled over his blanketed lap, breathing into the sting of stretching scabs where the lynx had torn him. Gandalf sent him a glare that he could feel even with his damp and blessedly clean tresses falling to obscure his sight. Then the wizened hands, as always both astonishingly strong and gentle, arranged the cushions behind him.

'There,' said Gandalf, not quite tenderly. He cupped Aragorn's off shoulder, mercifully the left, and eased him back against the soft slope. Aragorn could not help but close his eyes, riding another wave of sharp pain from his wounds at the same time the rest of his back was relieved of the weary burden of bearing him upright. He felt the brush of a calloused fingertip like a whisper across his cheek, drawing back the dark, overgrown curtain of hair. The hand hovered a moment too long over his hollow cheek, and then dropped down to straighten the coverlet. Only then did he open his eyes to find Gandalf looking gravely into them.

'Never mind my tale,' he said. He unclasped his cloak and flung it back onto the chair he had vacated. Then he brushed the worst of the mud from his flank and backside and sat down on the edge of the bed, hip to hip with the Ranger. Here they sat, Aragorn thought: the wizard and the weakling. And that sounded so much like a playful Hobbit song that he almost smiled again.

Perhaps it did not show, for Gandalf's grave expression did not alter in the least. He looked at his hand, brushed it on the breast of his robe, and curled it over Aragorn's. The healing chilblains rasped rough against his palm, and the Ranger knew that his friend could not help but feel the unnatural thinness of his long fingers. He wanted to look away, but he did not give in. He had wrought these changes on his body, whatever the cause, and he would not shy from that.

'Tell me of your road,' said Gandalf. Though soft, his voice was solemn and blessedly free of any hint of dismay. 'I left you in Harondor, and then?'

Aragorn drew in a deep and cleansing breath. His friend smelled of sweat and mud and good horseflesh, pine smoke and the damp undergrowth of Mirkwood. There was something in this mongrel scent that grounded him, as if it proved that Gandalf was really here with him, and the long hard road left behind.

'I passed into the Ephel Dûath,' he said levelly. 'There I came upon a sly orc who had rumours of our quarry. With his information, I passed into a network of caverns and tunnels – not all of natural make. I emerged in Torech Ungol.'

Gandalf sucked in a hissing breath. 'That is an evil name,' he said.

'It is an evil place,' Aragorn concurred. 'There is a…'

His voice trailed off, failing him as a soul-deep shudder wracked his body. In the haste and desperation of his northward journey he had given little thought to the vast spider he had seen and so narrowly escaped. He shook his head.

'I did not pass into Mordor,' he breathed, and somehow those words gave him the strength to continue with his tale. With all he had seen and suffered, at least it had not come to that again. 'I descended the stairs to Morgul Vale.'

There was no need to speak of what had passed there. That was a tale for a firelit night in the Last Homely House, not for a sickroom in this shadowed realm so far from home. He went on, still fixed on Gandalf's eyes.

"I tarried a while in Ithilien, wending slowly north as I recovered my vigour and gathered such food as I could find. Even so far south, January is not kind.'

He paused, hoping that the use of the Hobbit-month might bring a spark of fondness to Gandalf's eyes. His love of the little folk was legendary, and that legend far from foundless. Aragorn's own dear friend among that people had carried him through many dark times especially on this wretched journey. But Gandalf was only watching him, solemn and silent and inexorably demanding that he go on.

'I came at length before the Black Gate, and what I have to tell of it will doubtless chill your blood as it has chilled mine. The Enemy is amassing the waste of great industry there: mountains of slag that rival the ancient hills, and column upon column of wretched slaves bearing loads to add to it. The cogs of war are turning in Mordor, and the waste of Gorgoroth is spilling forth. Soon it will not be that land's only export.'

Gandalf nodded. 'I heard something of this in Gondor,' he said. 'Their watchers and scouts are not unaware of the stirring giant on their border, and the Steward's own countermeasures have begun – in as much as they can be begun in these waning days.'

'Of course,' Aragorn whispered. He thought with cold anxiety of Gondor: of her smithies and armouries struggling to produce, of her armies trying to awaken from the static tension of an uncertain border towards the manic vigilance of war, of young boys brought from cot and farm and apprenticehood and told they must be ready. Even the might of the nation he had known, under a Steward recruiting swords and minds even from far abroad, would have struggled to mount a sufficient defence against the monstrosity he had seen. And then there had been Thorongil to lead them, and valiant Adrahil in armour that glinted like gold, and Denethor their Captain-General and a hale man in the prime of life. What now? Were the young noblemen of Gondor the equal of those that were gone or aged now into advisors and recallers of the past? And Denethor, now come into his own as he had so lusted to do: was he the Steward Gondor needed to guide her into war?

'Yes, of course,' Gandalf echoed. 'You know well Gondor's border defences and the practices of her eyes in Ithilien. Few of the policies and methods taught to them have changed these many years.'

There was a searching note in his voice that Aragorn did not like, but neither did he understand it. What was clear was that he had to continue with his tale: otherwise he might lose the will to finish it.

'I despaired at last,' he said determinedly, keeping his gaze steady although his voice creaked. 'The trail had too long been cold, and the way treacherous. I was without resource or hope of resupply, and even then my stamina was flagging. I had thought perhaps to seek entry to Mordor after all, but I could not. Accepting my defeat and my disgrace, I turned to the North.'

Gandalf's eyes darkened and he opened his mouth sharply, but no words emerged. Closing it again he shook his head, and motioned with his unoccupied left hand that Aragorn should continue.

'I was skirting the Dead Marshes,' he said; 'and unlooked-for I came upon that which I had sought with such assiduous eyes all these long years: a small footprint in the mud – more hobbit-like than orc, with long toes and narrow heel. The marks were fresh: scant hours old. I followed them, and I had him, squatting on the edge of a foul pool. I took him, but it was no easy task. He gored me with his teeth, and that hurt has festered slowly all the long leagues that came after. '

Gandalf had hold of his left hand, which otherwise might have gone unwittingly to the bandage on his right arm, just visible beyond the cuff of his garment. As it was, Aragorn had to content the sudden intractable itch with a flexing of his right fingers and a rolling of the wrist. Gandalf's eyes travelled to it instinctively, horrified despite the carefully schooled expression the rest of his face still wore. The reprieve from his piercing stare was a welcome one, and Aragorn used it to press on.

'Our passing of the Emyn Muil was swift and strange. I learned very quickly that he had to be kept gagged at all times, and bound when we chanced to halt. I did not dare to sleep save at direst need – that held true all the long way north. We passed over Anduin as soon as I could contrive it—'

'How?' asked Gandalf sharply, and Aragorn was momentarily bewildered by the ferocity of the question. 'How did you cross over Anduin?' the wizard said.

'I bound my captive to a piece of driftwood and swam,' Aragorn said impassively, grey eyes daring the Istar to challenge him on this. 'I have done it ere this.'

Again Gandalf seemed to wish to speak, but refrained. Again he motioned that the speaker should go on.

'We crossed Eastemnet, where we were waylaid and nearly undone by a valiant young champion of the Riddermark named Osbehrt.' He half-hoped that Gandalf would question him on this, for it was a bright point in a very dreary tale, but the wizard was silent. 'And we trailed the skirts of Fangorn.'

Aragorn fell silent at this. Now he could feel, as if still beneath those ancient boughs, the weight and presence of the trees. It seemed he could feel their eyes upon him, boring through to his heart and all his most secret thoughts, and fears, and desires both noble and shameful. He wanted to ask Gandalf of this, to query if he had ever wandered that way and what he had made of the ageless forest if he had, but it seemed almost profane to do so. To ask of this being who for all his humble form was privy to powers and secrets more vast than the minds of Men could grasp the meaning of this strange sentience almost as venerable and mystical as his own… that was an act of hubris and arrogance that Aragorn could not commit.

Gandalf gripped his hand more tightly for a moment, and then patted it in a prosaically consoling manner that quite erased Aragorn's flight of philosophy from his mind. 'Just a moment, if you will,' he said. 'From the sound of it, Strider the silver-tongued needs to wet his whistle, and I am brewing a thirst myself. I came marching through Thranduil's halls and passages with the haste of a forgetful pageboy.'

He rose and went to the table, pouring clear, clean water from the ewer into the waiting goblets. He offered one to Aragorn and quaffed of the other himself. The Man took his carefully, exerting all his will to keep his hand from shaking. He was far improved from his condition on the first night in this subterranean palace, but he was still weak and unwell, and the effort of reliving this road, however cursorily, was exhausting to his very spirit. He took a careful sip of the water, still cool and sweet despite standing so long. There was doubtless some Elven blessing wrought into the vessel that had held it. He drank somewhat more deeply, and felt his throat soothed out of a burning tautness he had scarcely felt. He lowered the goblet to let its base rest on his lap, but Gandalf took it instead and set it with his own on the edge of the table before sitting again on the edge of the bed.

This time he did not take Aragorn's hand, and that was encouraging. He no longer feared that the Man might be so fragile that he would slip away without an anchoring hold upon him. Aragorn crossed his arms over his chest, still tender on the right side with the sequelae of his hard fall, and resumed his tale.

'I came at length to the very eaves of Lothlórien,' he said. 'There was no question of trespassing further, for I had no time to spare and Gollum would not have been welcome in that place of peace. I expect you have had a full accounting of my brief sojourn from the Galadhrim.'

'Not a full accounting,' Gandalf muttered. His eyes were searching deeply again, but he spoke more clearly as he said; 'They told me you came to them in rags, leading a wretched thing almost beyond description. They described you as wayworn and weary, and one admitted – to her comrade's chagrin, I think – that they held you as an intruder of suspect motives.'

'They did, but there can be no blame for that,' said Aragorn. 'The misunderstanding was put right, and they clothed me and left me well-provisioned. I would have come to journey's end in far better state than I did, if not for Gollum's treachery. He scuttled us on the ice over Gladden. My pack was lost, the wretch nearly escaped, and it was a near thing to keep from freezing. The winter's last chill was a desperate one this year.'

Gandalf's eyes were clouded with grim thoughts that likely ran entirely too close to the course of truth. This time Aragorn did take his gaze away towards thin hands that had moved somehow to his lap and folded together there. He tightened their hold and saw white crescents rise in the ruddy, frostnipped flesh. At Gladden's mouth had Isildur drowned, foundering in Anduin with orc-arrows piercing his flesh. It would have been a fine end to the bloodline if his last scion had frozen on the blighted river's bank.

'Through the ice?' said Gandalf. 'And into the river.'

'Yes,' Aragorn said, too weary to dissemble.

There was a dissolute huff of air from Gandalf, and Aragorn knew his nostrils had flared with it. He could not bring himself to meet the wizard's eyes again. 'We crossed Anduin by the ferry,' he recited flatly; 'and I passed two days with the Beornings. Grimbeorn graced me with sanctuary, and the lady Eira and her granddaughter saw to my care. Without their goodness and generosity, this last road may well have proved beyond my strength. As it was I fell afoul of a spider, much thanks to Gollum's machinations. And we were beset by a lynx and her mate, though I do not think my prisoner was willfully to blame for that. The horns of the Greenwood came none too soon.'

He wanted to contrive a wry grin to show that he was not disheartened by his brushes with his own mortality or his persistent stupidity in underestimating his captive, but the corners of his mouth seemed weighted with lead. He could not even try to bring a glint of amusement into his eyes.

'Now I am here,' he said at last, heavily. 'And Gollum is ensconced in the very cell that once held the King Under the Mountain ere he reclaimed his crown. What use you can make of him I do not know. I have wrung nothing from him but bitter imprecations, strangling claws and treachery. I lack the heart to interrogate him, and the grace to refrain from atrocities if I tried.'

'Doubt your heart's fortitude if you must, far as it has been pushed,' said Gandalf softly; 'but never its grace. You would not stoop to such methods, however pressed.'

Aragorn's eyes flew to his friend's face, and he knew they were very cold: frozen by denial of this belief and dread of the truth he feared and knowledge of what had passed between him and his captive in the wastes of Wilderland. He had tried to uphold the precepts of nobility even in the face of greatest duress, and in part he had succeeded. But what of those times when his restraint had broken? What of those times when he had indeed raised a hand against a bound and defenceless prisoner? What of that?

Gandalf sighed and chafed his beard with one palm. He was shaking his head almost hypnotically. 'And that is your tale?' he said. 'Have you told me all, Aragorn son of Arathorn, or are you holding back to spare an old man's conscience?'

'What have you to put on your conscience?' asked Aragorn. 'You had no part in this.'

A bitter chuckle came from the wizard's lips. 'I had every part in this,' he said. 'It was I who brought the problem to you. It was I who gave credence to your suggestion that the creature must be found. It was I who whisked you away from your folk and your labours time and again to take up the hunt. Though you have been good enough to forget it, it was I who kept you from your mother's deathbed on that selfsame errand.'

Again Aragorn's gaze shifted sharply, but this time with reproof for his friend. 'I have said there can be no blame for that,' he declared. 'I should not have been with her, wherever I was at the last.'

'No,' Gandalf said, such gentleness in his tone that Aragorn felt his courage wavering. He had held himself fast through the pained telling of his tale, but this would surely break him. 'Had you been at Sarn Ford or Amon Hen, or even in Cardolan or the Trollshaws, you might have been found and fetched in time. But you were far away across the Hithaeglir, toiling in friendship. That has weighed heavily upon me these last years, forgiven or no.'

'It is forgiven,' Aragorn pledged. Now it was he who bridged the gulf between them and took Gandalf's hand. 'It has always been forgiven, if there was ever anything to forgive.'

'And who am I to scorn a royal pardon?' Gandalf asked sardonically. He pulled his hand away and stared at it. 'But what forgiveness is there for one who abandons all hope and despairs of his quest, and leaves his friend to go alone into darkness? You have not told me all, Dúnadan, and it is what you have kept back that I must answer for. What did you find in the passes above the Black Land?'

'Foul air and fouler thoughts,' said Aragorn evenly. 'Perils best left forgotten.'

'Aye?' lilted Gandalf, cocking his head in doubt. 'And in Imlad Morgul? And before the Black Gate?'

'Poisoned blossoms and a sight to taint the heart and try the courage,' Aragorn answered. For a moment he could feel the chill nothingness of the Black Breath clawing at his lungs and his soul, as he filled his mind with the earnest riddle of Bilbo Baggins's creation.

'And a passel of orcs to bind you?' Gandalf sang back in the same metre.

Aragorn's sore lips parted fractionally, but he was too practiced in the arts of dissimulation and equivocation to give more than that even now. 'Orcs abound in the Enemy's lands,' he said. 'They are crawling over the slag hills from out of Udûn: who else will keep the slaves to their work?'

There was bitterness in his voice instead of nonchalance, but he could not mask that. The memories of his time in Mordor had been blunted by the decades, but not enough to suppress the tide of outrage and revulsion that rose at the thought of those wretched people, some born out of generations of bondage, cringing beneath the Eye behind the bastion of the Ephel Dûath. They were forgotten by their kindred, now distanced by ever-increasing degrees stretching even unto centuries. They were forgotten by their homelands. They were forgotten, perhaps, by the Sun herself – and remembered only by a lone wanderer who walked free and yet was bound by the same Shadow, drawn on towards an end that likely could not, even in its most favoured iteration, result in their liberty.

'Son of Elrond, do not lie to me," Gandalf said, and the dour note in his voice chilled Aragorn and brought him up short, aided greatly by this most private of his many epithets. He read the warning in the eyes of the Istar, so nearly unmasked in their fierceness now. The underfed freshets of his veins ran with ice.

'I do not lie," he said, and that was true. But he had dissembled, and tried to change the course of the questioning. He would not admit to that fault, but he could not persist with it. 'How did you learn of the orcs?' he asked instead.

'I was many weeks in Minas Tirith, plumbing the depths of ancient archives left untouched perhaps since the dawn of the Age,' said Gandalf, the tension ebbing a little from his body as he spoke. 'I fear I was a great vexation to my host, who could not turn me away and did not try to make me welcome. Yet it was his obligation to house me in the Citadel, and to give me my board. I did not take it with him but once,' he added with a ghostly little twinkle of amusement in his eyes. 'That was on the night of my arrival, and I fear it was a trial enough for both of us.'

'I imagine it was,' Aragorn said, forgetting his discomfiture and the crawling feeling of impeding mortification for a moment in the thought of Denethor forced by old custom to welcome one he disliked to his very core but could not – did not dare to – scorn. Denethor had never taken gracefully to an awkward corner. 'I hope you did not force a permanent estrangement.'

'No,' said Gandalf. 'But I did take to having my meals at times that were, I fear, inconvenient for the servants but at a healthful remove from their master's habits. The day-meal, in particular, I would take late at night when my labours grew too wearisome. So it was that I sat one night in the Steward's great hall by the light of one tall candle, partaking of a fine repast graciously held over for me by the kitchens. Minas Tirith is a city of plenty, and no garrison of war: more was laid out than one scholar could possibly consume. But the company of the meal itself was insufficient after so many days alone among the dusty tomes, and when a form appeared in the far doorway, I called to it to join me. You remember the far doorway of the great hall, no doubt.'

Now Aragorn did smile, unaccustomed though his mouth still was to the notion. Indeed he did remember it well. How often he had slipped unobtrusively through it, coming late to board as his duties allowed, or hurrying up to it only to slow himself to a sedate walk as he entered into some feast from which he could not be excused, though he had ridden hard all day to return from labours on the frontiers of Ithilien! How frequently he had taken his leave through that same carven arch, when the night's festivities drew near their close. Once he had been drawn through it at a trot by a flustered maiden, wrath high and scarlet in her cheeks as she held her rage until she and her confidante were out of earshot of the assembled company.

Yes, he remembered the far doorway of the hall where once the sons of Elendil had danced with their wives. It faced the high table where in his time Ecthelion had presided as lord and a young captain out of the far countries had been honoured more than once. To have a square view of that doorway Gandalf would have been sitting, ostensibly impudently but in truth with perfect right, in the Steward's chair.

'He came to me, this shadow, and who should he prove to be when he stepped into the ring of light but the Steward's second son, weather-stained and muddy in his cloak of mottled green,' Gandalf was saying now. 'He has been made Captain of the Rangers of Ithilien, you see: a place known to be favoured by his grandfather, but somewhat less honoured under the present Steward. It is a great legacy for a young man to take on, but I believe he has done well beneath it.'

'Denethor's second son,' Aragorn said thoughtfully. He had forgotten his weariness now, and almost forgotten the awkward question that had presaged this tale. His mind was walking in hallowed memory even while he listened to Gandalf. 'I had been gone some years before he was born, I think.'

'Aye: his small feet were never sullied by being dandled in the lap of his father's rival,' Gandalf said sardonically, but not without good humour. He too was enjoying this telling, and the light of remembrance it had ignited in eyes that had gone dull and blank as their own tale progressed. Aragorn did not allow himself to think of this, but in his heart he knew it all. 'And yet somehow he has grown up on the fringes of his father's good grace. Lord Boromir was ever the great jewel in Denethor's coffer, and beside him young Faramir is but a bronze brooch: beautifully wrought, perhaps, but little admired.'

There was something strange in these words, too: an undertone beneath one word that Aragorn could not quite pin down. In any case he was occupied with a pang of pity for the Steward's younger son. He knew what it was to be out of Denethor's favour, and it was not a scorn to be borne by the faint of heart. Thorongil had liked well the Lady Finduilas, and had read the shadows in her heart and the Sea-longing in her patient eyes. He would have wished better on her child.

'I am sorry for that,' he said now. 'I have never known a father's displeasure, but I have seen it to be a heavy burden.'

'Say disinterest,' Gandalf suggested. Then he frowned pensively and amended; 'Sometimes displeasure, I think. But only sometimes. For the most part I think the youth craves merely a quiet word of praise for all his earnest and so often fruitful labours. But his craving goes for the most part unsatisfied, and so the secret places in his heart have been closed off like the shell of a tortoise, guarding what is within. Remember that as I go on.

'So I called to him, and he came to me gladly. "Mithrandir!" he said, with the same earnest warmth I had received from his brother. "Well met! I did not hear you had come to the city. Have you also just arrived?"

'I told him no: that I had been here many days upon a matter of scholarly interest. "But I see you have but lately returned, and must be hungry," I said to him. And I bade him sit and eat with me. This he did, "For my father will be abed at this hour, and though I should go first to my Captain-General and make my report I think Boromir will forgive me a small indulgence. My belly is empty and my mind is full. I would welcome your counsel as well as your company."'

Aragorn inclined his head in solidarity with this sentiment. When he had a mind Gandalf could make uniquely excellent company, and he never offered anything but the wisest of counsel. Though he had himself long grown out of the temptation to partake of a meal before delivering his tidings, he remembered the keen pangs of a young stomach only too well: fuelling a body still growing into manhood's hardiness and not yet well-trained enough to bear privation patiently. He thought that he liked this son of Denethor, and he could plainly see that Gandalf held him in some affection.

' "Company first!" I said, and motioned again for him to sit. As he came around the table I could see that he was weary, and I guessed that he had not made camp on his homeward road. I wondered what cares might drive a man so when there was no imminent need, but I held my tongue on that score and gave him my old news out of Rohan in exchange for his old news of Minas Tirith. You will be interested to know that Minardil has had a great-grandchild.'

'Indeed!' Aragorn tried to sound cheered by this news, but it made his heart ache for days that had been. Minardil had been his first commander when he came to Gondor, and later his most trusted lieutenant. In those days he had been courting, then newly married. A great-grandchild spoke of an early union in one generation or the other, but not early enough to make Aragorn feel anything but ancient. Ancient, and childless, and still dispossessed with the Shadow undefeated. It was not a happy thought.

'Hmm.' Gandalf nodded pensively. 'There were other things, too, and I shall tell you all that in time, but soon enough we ran short of pleasantries and fell to graver matters as we started on a very nice compote.'

A wild, amused thought flitted through Aragorn's mind. If Gandalf had had any clear sense of the desperate privations of the Ranger's road, he might have omitted talk of food from his own tale. Perhaps his dignity was unscathed after all.

'"I have a tale to tell you, Mithrandir, and I beg of you to hear it," said Faramir, and the joy at our meeting was gone from his face. He had the look of a man troubled to the very depths of his heart, and unsure of any surcease. "Tell me," I bade him. "For a burden shared is a burden lightened, and my shoulders are broad."' At this he flicked Aragorn an arch look that was neither unmissed nor worthy of comment in the moment. 'Then he sighed and he said; "On patrol in northern Ithilien, one of my scouts came upon an encampment of orcs. They had sheltered for the day in a cave in near the foot of the mountains, near a certain tree that has always had the look more of a gallows than a thing of nature…"'

Aragorn had ceased to guard his expression somewhere around his first thoughts of his beloved liege-lord, and now Gandalf could read him clearly. The wizard's lip curled wryly as he took in the Ranger's expression.

'I see the story is known to you,' he said. 'If indeed I had any doubt before. Would you care to continue?'

'To what end, if it is known to both of us?' Aragorn asked. He was cornered now, but he could not be angry and he found that he was not ashamed after all. He had been taken in ignominy, it was true, but he had escaped with his dignity, his boots and his knife. And in an awkward corner, he had always been his rival's better. 'I confess I am curious to see how it played upon the other side of the curtain.'

Gandalf smiled, and the smile was a little wider than amusement alone should have made it. Aragorn saw that it was spread with relief. 'I thought you might,' the wizard said. 'Faramir told me how his man had signaled for the others, and for the aid of a healer for a wounded captive. Yet when the Rangers assembled and descended on the camp, the orcs were there and the Man, bound and bloodied though he had been, was gone. There was no question of withdrawing, for the servants of the Enemy are not welcome even on the far marches of Ithilien. There was a battle, swift and fierce, and they believed all the orcs were slain. But when they gathered to tend to their comrades' wounds – thankfully minor – a stringy little goblin rose up from among the dead and fled into the crevices and stony heights of the mountain behind. Any attempt at pursuit was senseless, and the wretch escaped, letting fall a trinket as he ran.'

'Third Voice!' Aragorn hissed. His astonishment was almost past expressing, and eclipsed any minor details of the account. The wily little thing had escaped the slaying of his comrades in the Ephel Dûath. He had survived his fall from the cliff face to the scree. He had kept his head down in a band of hostile Uruks, invoked the Nazgûl to keep his prisoner from being lynched or beaten to death, and then escaped from Ithilien's doughty Rangers. It was beyond belief, and despite himself he could not help but feel a spark of admiration for Third Voice and his cunning.

'What was that?' Gandalf asked sharply, raising an eyebrow.

'The little orc,' Aragorn said. 'He was sworn to Minas Morgul. It was he who insisted I should be brought there for questioning nearer stronghold of the Morannon. He prevented… never mind. He escaped. It is… remarkable.'

'It is unprecedented, in Faramir's opinion,' said Gandalf dryly. 'But he and his men – particularly the one who had actually seen the prisoner – were more interested in the orcs' erstwhile captive. The injured were sent back to their haven in the forest, for none were too far gone to walk or to defend themselves if the need arose, and the others made chase. Their quarry was swift and cunning, and they tracked him until sundown. They half expected to find the trail broken when they took it up at dawn, but somehow it was not. The Man, so it seemed, lacked the wit to double back or take steps to otherwise confound them.'

There was a gentle teasing lilt to this, and Aragorn offered a tired, chagrined shrug of his good shoulder. 'Perhaps he was not at his best at the time,' he said.

'Perhaps. They resumed the trail, and the most far-seeing of the company caught sight of him once: an indistinct brown lump against a brown land, and moving with great speed. They comforted their consciences then with the knowledge that he could not possibly have been gravely hurt by the orcs, and that was a particular consolation to the one who had found him. Anborn, so Faramir tells it, is a tender-hearted youth and rather too unhardened for his duties. "But to callous a tender heart is perhaps a worse wrong than to let a soldier soften a little," he said to me. "The others keep him well in line and he is valiant in a scrape."'

Gandalf paused and looked thoughtfully at Aragorn. What was passing through his mind the Man dared not guess, but it had the look of far-wandering in distant memory. Then the keen eyes focused again and he went on. 'Night was falling when they came, not to the end of their trail but to the very edge of the Dead Marshes. Their chase had borne them out of Ithilien into debatable lands, and to the very brink of a place of such ancient dread that it is said no man of Gondor has trod it in two thousand years. Into that evil swamp the footprints led: prints of old boots without hobnails, worn but well-made; the tracks of a man taller than most who walked even in his desperate haste with a stride so even that it might have been measured. A description, by the way, that to the knowing would have been proof enough without any other.'

There was a haunting truth to that, but it needed no remark. Aragorn let himself sink back a little further against the pillows. The pressure that had been so painful on his claw-marks was now soothing, and he felt his exhaustion filtering back like fog through a silk curtain. He hoped it did not show.

'There was a debate then: whether to pursue the trespasser even into that perilous place, or whether to withdraw to safer lands and resume their duties. "I know what my father would have bade me do," said Faramir. "But a captain's duty is only second to his lord. A captain's first duty is to his men, to safeguard their lives as he can and to spend them only in direst need and for measurable gain. To press on into that place would have put them at great risk for questionable profit. Such dangers soldiers must sometimes dare, but only when the need outweighs the cost. Had I lost a man to that venture, his life would not have been spent but squandered." At his order they withdrew, and he bade them forget the stranger the scout had seen and the chase they had made.'

'It was the right choice,' said Aragorn. 'The marshes of Dagorlad are indeed deadly, and the unwitting may fall too easily to their enticements. The land before them is debatable enough, roamed by the servants of the Enemy and far from any aid. There will be work aplenty for the men who safeguard Ithilien ere long: not one life can they afford to squander on a vagabond who was clearly no friend of the Uruks. I would not have risked one of my own on such a quest, much less a handful. He was right to pursue as far as he did. One step further would have been naught but arrogance and negligence.'

Gandalf nodded. 'That much I told him straight away. But Faramir was uneasy in his mind. It was his duty, you see, to report the incident, and he knew his father would look with scorn and rage upon his choice. He could not shirk his responsibility, but his heart was sick with dread. He feared also for the Man he had failed to pursue, for he had been in the hands of cruel captors and had been seen to be ill-used. He could not have escaped as he did and brought with him much by way of provender, or any other assets to aid him in that terrible land in which he had taken refuge. "I fear I have left him to his death, lamentable wanderer though he was," he confessed to me. We had long since dispensed with the meal and turned from its leavings, but at that moment I should not have been able to eat had I been without for three days.'

Sober eyes fixed on Aragorn's, and the firm, weathered hand closed now on his arm as if to reassure the wizard that the Man before him was real and living. 'I have great faith in your hardihood, Aragorn, but I feared for you then. I see my fears were not misplaced, for you are as haggard as one left a week in the gibbet. What you have endured in the name of this hunt stretches far beyond anything I could have intended. For that, too, I am sorry.'

Aragorn's throat was tight. His friend's care was balm for a lonely soul, but the pain of witnessing his remorse was terrible. 'They bloodied my face and bruised my ribs: no more,' he said tersely. 'The Captain and his earnest young scout overestimated my incapacity.'

'That I know well,' said Gandalf; 'and once again should have done so with no further proof. But as your incapacity was overestimated then, so your capacity has been sorely tested since. My fears were not unfounded, only somewhat off the mark. And Faramir eased them almost at once, for he confessed he had left water and such scant provisions as he could spare without harm to his men.'

'So he did, and the provisions did not seem scant to me,' said Aragorn. 'That was an act of mercy that was the equal of many told of in song, and I will never forget it. But how did you counsel him?' This question brought a flutter of anxious unease to his breast. 'You could not have told him to keep the tale from his Steward.'

'Indeed I did,' said Gandalf. 'I should have done so in any case, whether I recognized the fugitive or no, for the greater evil would have been to give to Denethor such a tale to brood upon in the midnight hours. He has grown over-analytic in his age, and ruminates upon strange happenings with unhealthful fascination. I do not know what he would have made of the incident in the end, but I doubt any good could have come of it. Though it could scarcely circle 'round to touch you, it would have gone ill for his son.'

Aragorn felt a sick horror that was blurred with disbelief. 'You counselled that young man, so noble in his intentions and so sensible in his judgments, to be forsworn to his avowed lord?' he breathed.

'Nay, it did not come to that, Captain Thorongil,' Gandalf said with a tiny note of fond amusement. 'Have no fear for your successor's honour. I bade him merely follow the ancient chain of command and report not to his Steward, as a son might report to his father, but to his Captain-General, as would be expected of any other commander in the nation.'

For a moment Aragorn considered this, having to translate the titles to their current holders instead of those he had known under them. 'To Boromir,' he said, and the image in his mind was not that of a stalwart warrior of Gondor, but of a small boy in a silken gown and brocaded slippers toddling unsteadily as he clutched his mother's fingers.

'To Boromir. I told Faramir it was fitting for him to tell his Captain-General, and to let his superior decide what it was mete for the Steward to know and what was beneath his notice. Fear not!' he said, as a doubt rose to Aragorn's eyes. 'For Boromir is a conscientious lord – more conscientious, some would say, than his predecessor was in that same post. He will do his duty by his Steward and judge the matter to be too insignificant to trouble a head already burdened with many weighty problems. And he will do his duty to the mother he adored by safeguarding the brother he loves. I do not doubt it will remain their secret.'

Aragorn wanted to shake his head in wonder, both at the strange coincidence that had brought word of this to Gandalf and at the wizard's deft handling of a sensitive matter, but he was too weary to spare the strength. Instead he closed his eyes slowly and held them thus. 'You are cunning, Gandalf the Grey,' he said. 'Small wonder Lord Denethor is loth to let you trespass too far into his household.'

Then his eyes shot open in sudden remembrance of the task that had borne Gandalf to Minas Tirith in the first place.

'Did you find it?' he demanded, his breath coming short and quick from his wet lungs. 'Did you find what you sought?'

'I found it,' Gandalf assured him; 'but we will not speak of that now. I have tried you beyond your endurance, I think. Now you must rest, and I must impose myself upon another lord of the Free Peoples for hospitality he has not precisely offered.'

Aragorn opened his mouth to protest, but his tongue was too tired to form the words. Arguing with Gandalf required stamina at the best of times. Now, it was nigh on impossible. He inclined his head slightly in clear assent.

'When you go to see Gollum—' he began.

'I shall return to you ere I trouble with him,' said Gandalf. 'I do not think you have told me the half of your story, Dúnadan, and while the same is true of mine, that one consists almost solely of a dry account of the thousands of accountancy scrolls, miscopies of old poetry, and marriage ledgers I have sorted through. Yours, I think, will make far more illuminating telling, and you may recall important details you neglected to share this time. Sit up for a moment now: take hold of my arm.'

This time Aragorn obeyed, not trusting the muscles of his abdomen to draw him forward on their own, nor the sinews of his back to keep him upright once he got there. He clung to Gandalf's arm, brow braced against his shoulder, while the wizard rearranged the pillows one-handed so that Aragorn could be eased down onto them.

'One more thing before I go,' Gandalf said quietly, standing by the bed and bowed over him with Aragorn's left hand clasped in his right. Aragorn looked up at his friend's weathered face, ancient and yet ageless and writ with wisdom and kindness in equal measure. 'Faramir son of Finduilas laid one last charge upon me ere he went to his brother that night. "You have travelled far and wide, Mithrandir," he said. "If in all your journeys you should chance to stumble upon the one to whom this thing belongs, I beg you to give it to him with my blessing." Then he laid in my hand the trinket that the small goblin had let fall in his haste. I told him I did not know when I would find such a person, or where, and perhaps you will agree that I did not quite deceive him. Take it, Aragorn, and keep it. I know you would not have let it go save in direst need."

Then his left hand emerged from beneath his robe and moved palm to palm with Aragorn's right. There was something cold and hard between them, ornately contoured and yet smooth to the touch. Aragorn raised his hand and tucked his chin, but even before he saw it he knew what he held. He had carried it with him through all the long years and all the weary journeys save this last. He had taken his name from it once, and his legacy from it always. There in his ravaged palm sat the rayed silver star of the Dúnedain.

He spoke, though his eloquence failed him. 'Thank you,' he said simply. 'I should have been sorry to lose it.'

Gandalf chuckled, his eyes very soft. 'Adroit as ever, Dúnadan,' he said. He drew up the bedclothes with his left hand, but kept his right closed over Aragorn's as he bent low again. 'Now sleep. You have not spoken of your suffering, but it is writ across your body in signs even an old man can read. You have starved yourself in fetching the truth for me, and that worries me more than your other hurts, for you have borne worse than those and thrived. But now, diminished as you are? I cannot say.' His voice dropped almost to a whisper, mournful and impossibly tender. 'What you have endured, my poor foolish boy!'

Aragorn was already half asleep, his battered body having its own ideas about the matter and pursuing them without consulting his will. But he mustered himself enough to shake his head against the cushions. 'I do not deem my deeds foolish, though they were desperate,' he mumbled thickly. 'And I am no longer a boy.'

'Indeed you are not,' Gandalf said gravely. 'And no clearer sign of your manhood have I ever seen than this last great act of courage. Sleep, Aragorn, and may you be blessed with the fairest dreams Estë has to offer.'

Then bowing low he kissed Aragorn's brow, gripping his hand tightly again. And he was gone from the room, and the firelight dimmed before weary eyes as the Ranger slept.