Note: Chapter title from “The Tower of Cirith Ungol”, The Two Towers, J.R.R. Tolkien.

Chapter LXXIV: At Journey’s End

Before they set off in the morning, Aragorn took the opportunity to check his feet. He had been too far gone in the throes of the mountain sickness to spare them any thought in recent days, and it was with some apprehension that he removed his hose now. The sight was much less disheartening than he had feared. This much could be said for the elegantly impractical boots: they fitted him perfectly. He had no blisters, not a single hot place, and no new callouses. There was some bruising at the base of each great toe, doubtless from climbing duck-footed, and a fresh purple blotch had blossomed in the crease of his right ankle, but there was nothing more serious to be seen. Even the days of wet feet had done no notable harm. It was another small stroke of good fortune to which he might cling.

The night had proved inadequate to dry their outer clothing, but at least it was no longer dripping. It was unpleasant to pull on the chilled, damp garments and feel the wet soak slowly through the body linen, shivering until the heat of their bodies warmed their raiment. Gandalf had the worst of this, for his robes were more voluminous and hence far heavier, wet or dry, than the Ranger’s new cote. Aragorn noticed with a troubled eye how the wizard’s shoulders stooped as he buckled Glamdring to his hip, and the stiff-legged way in which he mounted. The hard days of travel and long nights spent resting on unyielding stone were taking their toll.

Aragorn’s own pains were more localized now, and due as much to the vigours of the road as to the lingering sickness in his bones. His back and his hips ached from the hours in the saddle. His fingers were stiff and brittle, both because of his hold upon the reins (now truly necessary as they rode so often downhill) and because of the cold that they had not yet left behind. His neck pained him, and a low and grinding headache yet lingered. This last at least was a welcome improvement from the awful, sundering pressure behind his eyes. He might have wished for some relief from the cough and the deep, sharp pain in his ribs, but on the whole his condition was somewhat improved.

The morning’s ride was uneventful, and they reached the treeline shortly before midday. By dusk the trail was bordered on one side with the spidery roots of hardy mountain pines, and on the other by their slender, tapered tops. With the trees came a more substantive layer of soil, with moss and newly sprouted grasses on which the horses could graze. Whenever they halted, both Moroch and the gelding began to feed at once. The grain was sufficient to keep up their strength from day to day, but it did not satisfy their stomachs as fresh forage did.

Gandalf again consented to dividing the watch, provided he was the first to take his turn. Aragorn conceded that this was fair, and settled himself for a few short hours of deep, stuporous slumber. He never would have been able to find such sleep in the Wild had his ordeal on the heights not left him so worn down with weariness. Yet he woke promptly when Gandalf called to him, and that was a marked improvement.

Aragorn’s own watch was not unpleasant. The skies were clear and the stars bright, and amid the trees he heard the comforting sounds of life. Small animals scurried, and a marten chittered gleefully. Now and then there came the swoop and flutter of a diving bat. Nonetheless his throat stung with fatigue, and when the dawn came and it was time to move on, Aragorn felt only the sorry urge to sleep again. Yet rise he did and on he went. Neither doom nor dragon-fire could keep him from his destination now, and the petty discomforts of the road certainly would not.

Gandalf made no further attempts to stay the pace. He too was anxious for the haven ahead, and he knew there could be no true rest for either of them until they reached it. From the piercing looks that followed each bout of coughing, Aragorn could see how deeply the wizard’s fear for him ran. They moved onward as swiftly as the terrain and their stamina allowed. Here, where the way was not so narrow and the gullies looked less alarming, the gelding was far more cooperative. He needed a tight rein on any earnest descent, however, because he showed an inexperienced horse’s natural tendency to build up a dangerous speed at the cost of control. Moroch managed nearly as well as she had on the heights, thought it was obviously tiring for her.

In this way they moved through that day and the next without incident. They seemed to be in a tidy pattern of divided watches, steady riding, and progressively less palatable meals. The dried fruit swiftly began to taste rancid, and so they were soon left with their store of nuts, supplemented by whatever young greens they chanced to spy near the path. Aragorn’s appetite had not yet recovered from the mountain sickness, and he felt no craving for more varied fare. Neither he nor Gandalf had energy to spare for hunting. It was best to use the time they might have squandered in such pursuits pressing on towards the bountiful tables of the Last Homely House.

It was midmorning on their third day below the treeline when they came to a parting of the ways. To call it a crossroads would have been too aggrandizing, but the downward path was fractured into three distinct passages. One swung away to the northwest, carpeted in soft, sandy soil and sheltered on both sides by sheer cliff faces. The due westerly path ran along a streambed now riotous with runoff. The one that hooked to the west-southwest was the roughest and rockiest of the three, and by far the least appealing. This was, of course, by careful design. It was the path that led on, through several more false turnings and hidden ways, to Rivendell.

It was the middle path they took first, however. It led by way of an arch of pale rock to a narrow valley seeded with spruce and hardy maple. Here the stream met a rise in the stony land and spread into a shallow pool before spilling over in a small waterfall to continue its journey. It made a pleasant place to bathe on a hot summer’s afternoon, but with the stream so cold that was unappealing today. Instead the two travelers took turns to stand watch while the other washed his hands, face and neck. The horses drank and grazed in the young grasses near the water.

The icy water was invigorating, and it restored to Aragorn something like his usual clarity of thought. It was with eager impatience and fresh resolve that he mounted again, and he had to restrain himself from urging Moroch on to a gallop. The burst of enthusiasm did not last long, of course. They still had several hours of travel before them, and these dragged by as the last stage of a long journey always must. Soon Aragorn was again bowed in the saddle, his body swaying idly with the mare’s gait. His bleary eyes began to pick out familiar landmarks: a leaning rock, a particular gnarled tree, a bend in the path. When the small hairs at the nape of his neck began to prickle with the sensation that he was being watched, he knew they were drawing near. By then, however, he was too weary from the day’s long travels to muster much interest.

They rode on perhaps half a mile from that point before the silvery laughter of a wood-elf rang out. At once the gelding stopped, one forehoof raised and ears perked eagerly. Gandalf gave a tired little chuckle and called out; ‘Guardians of Imladris, show yourselves! We have travelled far, and are in no mind to play.’

‘But Gandalf, one should always be of a mind to play! Without joy, what is life?’ the laugher asked merrily, from somewhere among the trees upon the left-hand slope.

‘A worthy question, and one I will gladly debate with you when I have supped and slept,’ Gandalf said with admirable patience. ‘Come out if you would speak with us, or leave us ride on.’

‘Who have you brought with you this time, Master Wizard?’ another voice asked from the opposite side of the path. ‘One of our kindred from the Greenwood? I know the make of those boots.’

‘It is I, Faundir,’ Aragorn said softly, brushing back his hood so that the watchers could see his face. At once from both sides went up sounds of welcome and merriment.

‘Ah, Estel! Come back to us at last!’ Faundir cried, though still he did not show himself. It was a game the wood-elves loved to play with travellers, and they did not spare those who were too long familiar with it merely because they gave little sport. ‘All the house shall be glad tonight!’

‘Where have you been to, and what have you done?’ asked another. ‘We ought to be the first to hear of your deeds occasionally, you know!’

‘There is little to say this time,’ said Aragorn; ‘and I am too weary for tale-telling tonight.’

‘Too weary for tale-telling?’ cried Faundir, dismayed. ‘Then hurry onward! There are soft beds and blazing fires awaiting you, and you must be in sore need of them if you cannot muster the will to talk! Go on: the lord of the house will be wanting to see you, and it has been many long years since we have tasted his wrath!’

Another chorus of irreverent laughter sang through the trees, and the two riders went on. The happy chatter of the wood-elves died away as they passed from sight and the guardians of this path fell silent once more. Of the armed sentries there was no sign, for these travellers were known and ever welcome. The last quarter mile slipped indistinctly by, as Aragorn quietly marshaled his remaining strength and his composure.

Then they broke out of the narrow channel of stone and into the fir forest that edged the highest slopes of the valley. The fragrance of spring was rich upon the land, and the air grew warmer as they descended. The woods gave way to the high grazing lands. The shepherds were abroad with their flocks, and there were glad cries and eager waves of greeting. Gandalf returned these with a courteous nod or a wave of the hand that held the gelding’s reins, but Aragorn was too exhausted to do more than offer the smallest of smiles as Moroch rode on. She seemed to appreciate that they were drawing interested eyes, for she tossed her head merrily and stepped high and proud.

So late in the day, the grain-fields were empty. The tiny shoots speckled the dark, fertile earth, and the scent of loam and new growth was strong and sweet. The peaks beyond the western walls of the valley were stained crimson with the setting sun as the horses moved on amid the budding orchards and gentle meadows. By now the air was warm enough that the low chill that clung to Aragorn’s jaw and brow began to disperse. It had been a constant minor irritant since they first begun their earnest climb, and the relief brought with it a wave of deep exhaustion that he did not truly understand.

Gandalf slowed the gelding so that Moroch drew up beside him. ‘Here we are at last,’ he said softly; ‘and see who has come to greet you.’

At last Aragorn raised his blank gaze from the back of the mare’s graceful neck, and forced himself to focus on the path ahead. There, spread out amid the bright hues of springtime, was the Last Homely House, and before its doors stood a handful of graceful figures. Central among them was Elrond himself, tall and fair in robes of blue and silver. And beside him, clad in green with her dark hair in twin plaits down her back, was Arwen Undómiel, Evenstar of her people.

For a moment it seemed that Aragorn could not breathe. So long had he wished for this in the secret places of his heart. These last many days it had been all he could think of. Yet the reality of this homecoming now struck him with the awe and piteous joy of a dreamer who awakens from the blackest nightmare to find himself safe in his own bed in a peaceful house with nothing to fear. His lips parted soundlessly and the reins slipped from his fingers.

‘Come, now,’ Gandalf said. He was not speaking to the Man, but to Moroch. Her ears harkened eagerly to the gentle command in his voice. ‘You have borne him this far: now take him home.’

As his determined young steed picked up her pace to an eager trot, Aragorn was jolted out of his stupour in time to catch up the lines. Gandalf and the gelding were now behind, and all at once the Ranger felt a coolness fall across his face as he passed into the long shadow of the house. Moroch drew up daintily upon the greensward before it, just at the edge of the cobbled way that swept before the great doors. She stopped before the Master of the house without any order or signal, for she could discern his majesty and his intense focus upon her rider.

Elrond hastened forward, graceful but not in the least sedate. A moment later he was at Aragorn’s stirrup, and a groom was stepping forward to take Moroch’s reins. Aragorn surrendered them unthinkingly and braced his palm upon the saddle as he kicked his right foot free and swung his leg into the dismount. A strong hand found the small of his back as the sole of the hard boot struck the ground, and when he had his left foot down as well he found himself drawn at once into a loving embrace.

‘Welcome, Estel. Welcome home,’ whispered Elrond. One hand was planted between Aragorn’s shoulder blades, unwittingly atop the scars of the lynx-claws. The other cupped the back of his head, laid bare when he had pushed back his hood on the heights. Aragorn found his own arm curling to hold his foster-father, and his head drooped forward to rest upon the strong and slender shoulder. He closed his eyes and his throat at once, trying to maintain some semblance of dignity despite his weariness and his numb wonder that he was here at last, after everything. Elrond held him closer and murmured; ‘Always I rejoice when you return to us whole and living.’

Then he drew back, forcing Aragorn to bear the weight of his own head again. Elrond’s hands slipped down to grip the Man’s, grey eyes searching the haggard countenance before him. ‘You have walked a hard road: it is writ upon your very brow,’ he said. ‘Come inside and lay by your burdens a while. There will be time for tales later. Welcome, Gandalf!’ he announced then, turning his eyes but not relinquishing his hold as the wizard dismounted. ‘When together the pair of you set out, I confess I did not dare to hope you might return in the same company. It is seldom that you may walk so long upon a shared road.’

‘To my shame, we did not, Halfelven. Not for long,' Gandalf sighed as he passed off his lines to another groom and dismounted himself. There was a rush of motion against Aragorn’s cloak as Moroch was led off.

‘Care well for her,’ he called hoarsely, turning his head in the hope of following the mare’s course. A wave of dreadful dizziness took him, however, and his vision blurred. Still he finished delivering his needful order. ‘She was given into my care by a loyal friend and compatriot, and she has been faithful indeed. Moroch is her name.’

‘Yes, Lord Aragorn,’ the groom said earnestly. ‘She shall be cared for, and stabled or let to wander as she wills. The valley is a haven for all travellers, be they two-footed or four.’

Moroch gave a little nicker, equal parts worry and reassurance, as she was led gently off. Aragorn tried to clear his sight that he might catch a last glimpse of her for the evening, but he could not master himself. The hands that had been holding his moved now to his elbows.

‘You are unwell,’ Elrond said softly, so softly that of those assembled around them only Gandalf could hear. ‘Aragorn. Aragorn, look at me. What has befallen you?’

Numbly Aragorn lolled his head back towards the figure before him. He blinked sluggishly, and the tender eyes grew clearer. Still he could not speak.

‘That is too long a tale to tell in the dooryard,’ Gandalf said. ‘Let us retire within, and perhaps I can explain.’

‘Yes…’ Elrond murmured, still studying Aragorn’s face intently. ‘Yes, perhaps that would be best. Come, my child. Let us not keep you swaying on the doorstep.’ He turned and gave Aragorn his arm, while Gandalf took hold of the other. Between them Aragorn was led over the cobblestones to the foot of the steps, where he hesitated. That was perhaps too dignified a word: he balked, like the gelding on the mountain path. This was not the aspect he would have chosen to present to his guardian, to the household of his youth, to his beloved.

And there she was, standing now just off to her father’s side with loving eyes and a face of such ethereal beauty that Aragorn felt he could not breathe at all. A sweet, sad smile touched her lips. ‘Come in, Estel, and rest,’ she said. ‘You are weary from the long road. When you have been tended I will come to you.’

Aragorn’s lips parted, but he could not speak. Without the strong shoulders to either side of his own, he doubted his knees would bear him up. When Gandalf took the first stair, he found his own foot following of its own accord. Arwen stepped back, hands folded serenely, and let the trio pass. Someone opened the lofty door, and they passed through into a vestibule already lit with candles against the day’s dying.

A voice was speaking, and faintly Aragorn realized it was Elrond’s. ‘… to your chamber?’ he asked.

Gandalf shook his head. ‘Let us not trouble with the stairs,’ he said. ‘There are ready beds in the infirmary rooms, are there not?’

‘Always,’ said Elrond, and Aragorn found himself being led off into a side passage.

‘I am not wounded,’ he managed at last, as the scents of herbs and soap and clean linen reached his nose. ‘That is to say, the wounds have healed…’

‘Nay, you are not wounded!’ Gandalf scoffed. ‘Only exhausted and aching, weak from the mountain sickness and lingering starvation, and brewing a cough to strike fear in the hearts of all who know you.’

Elrond’s steps faltered. ‘The mountain sickness? It has never troubled you before.’

‘No,’ sighed Aragorn. The blind anger that thought had brought only days before was gone. It did not matter now: the delays were past and he was here. ‘I misjudged the endurance of my lungs. I did not think… I should have thought…’

He was guided over the threshold of a room bright with the crimson of day’s end. A moment later he had been turned and was sinking down upon the edge of a soft, sweet-smelling bed.

‘Leave us now, Gandalf,’ said Elrond kindly. ‘There will be a hot supper brought to your room shortly, and orders have been given for a bath to be prepared. You have need of rest yourself; that is plain for all to see. I will tend to him now.’

Aragorn’s dim eyes found the wizard, and witnessed the ebb of care from his weathered face. The worry remained, but it too was eased. ‘I am glad for it,’ Gandalf said quietly. ‘I have been of little help, and I have feared for him. You may find him stubborn: all the rest of us have. I wish you luck.’

Elrond laughed softly as the wizard withdrew, closing the door to the little booth behind him. Then the nimble, capable hands were unclasping the star at Aragorn’s shoulder.

‘Have you need of water?’ the Elf-lord asked as he eased the cloak from the Ranger’s back and let it lie across the coverlet. The brooch he placed on the table by the bed. ‘Food will soon be brought. I can see you have need of it. You are very thin, Estel. What privations have you endured in your wearisome hunt?’

Startled by the realization that no word of their success had yet been spoken, Aragorn raised his head with more vigour than he had imagined he might yet possess. ‘Not in the hunt, but in the escort of my prisoner,’ he said. ‘Gollum is found, and he has been questioned. I led him North with what speed I could, but the road was hard. We must take council at once, for what we have learned will—’

‘What you have learned can wait until the morrow,’ said Elrond gently. He had unbuckled the worn leather belt and he drew it from Aragorn’s waist. He balanced the knife hanging from it and held the leathern strap in his hands, fingering the line of notches from the cracked place to which it had been girded when the Ranger last took his leave of Imladris to the hastily cut holes, to those punched in Lóthlorien. His fingertips lingered on the last two: the furthest obviously used, and the second freshly stretched by the tongue of the buckle. His eyes fell on Aragorn, mournfully knowing.

‘Ai, Estel,’ he breathed. Then he closed his eyes and drew in a deep, level breath. When next he spoke, it was with the calm gravity of one asking tidings of a traveller from afar. ‘You were separated from Gandalf, and then reunited?’

‘We parted ways in Harondor,’ Aragorn murmured, tilting back his chin as Elrond reached to loosen the lace of his cote. ‘He to make for Minas Tirith in search of… of corroborating evidence; and I to the East to continue the hunt. I despaired at last, but in that very hour – or near enough – I found him, the stinking little wretch. We two had a long and lonely road to Thranduil’s hall. There was little time for rest, and oft did we both go hungry. I confess that is the chief ill I have done myself, but it could not be avoided.’

‘I see.’ Elrond’s voice was still perfectly tranquil, but there was a tumult of torment in his eyes. ‘And the wounds of which you spoke?’

‘A twisted ankle, a few claw-marks,’ said Aragorn, not feeling that it was important at this time to mention where he had come by such marks, or what manner of creatures had caused them. ‘There was bruising to my flank that harmed the right kidney, but that has healed of its own accord as such hurts must. The healers of Thranduil did all they could to aid me. It is my lungs that are most troublesome now…’

‘So I can hear,’ said Elrond. The cote was open to the waist now, and he slipped his hand inside to spread it over Aragorn’s ribs through the fine linen of his shirt. Unfailing as always, he found the place where the ache was deepest. ‘Breathe for me, Aragorn.’

He drew in a deep, slow breath through his nostrils, and then tried to exhale steadily through pursed lips. But his self-control failed him and he burst into a series of wet, anguished coughs that sent him bent double over his lap. Elrond’s hand followed the curvature of his body, keeping its steady pressure. The other lent support to Aragorn’s shoulder as he crumpled forward, wheezing thinly between explosions of rattling air. When at last he was left to shallow gasping and watering eyes, Elrond withdrew his hand.

‘Gandalf spoke aright: it is starvation,’ he said. He went to a table beneath the window, and returned with a chalice of water. ‘Drink, and try to catch your breath. Small wonder you fell prey to the mountain sickness if you can scarcely find air enough in the valley. Why did you not linger longer in Mirkwood? It is no burden for Thranduil to house you.’

From over the top of the silver cup, Aragorn cast agonized eyes upon his father. Elrond’s puzzlement faded to deepest comprehension and sorrow. A moment later he too was seated on the side of the bed, and drawing Aragorn to him in a gentle embrace. He guided the Man’s head down upon his shoulder and held his far arm with the other hand, as he had held him in his boyhood.

‘You must tell me, when you are able, what burdens your valiant heart,’ Elrond whispered. ‘For now, let it be enough that you are home at last. You must eat a little, and then you may sleep. I will see to your other hurts tomorrow, if you will give me your word that the cough is the worst of it.’

‘It is,’ Aragorn sighed. ‘Of the hurts of my body, it is now the worst. All the rest are healed or healing.’

Elrond nodded, unquestioning as Gandalf would not have been. He stroked Aragorn’s hair, somewhat matted from the trail but still cleaner than it had been for most of his journey. ‘I praise Elbereth that you have returned to us, Estel,’ he said. ‘Whenever you walk the dark places it is a gift and a mercy to have you come out again, however you do so. Remember that.’

Aragorn gave his silent oath that he would try.

lar

He awoke befuddled and still weary to the bone in a sunlit room. The fair carven beams above the bed left him for a moment disoriented and certain that he had not wakened at all, but slipped into a deep and bittersweet dream of his childhood home. In that moment, Aragorn’s heart was wrung with bitterest despair. Soon, if not at once, he would have to wake up, and when he did he would find himself in some lonely, desolate place and shackled to the most loathsome companion Morgoth himself could have conceived.

But then he heard the call of a lark beyond his window, and he felt the soft contours of the feather bed beneath him, and he saw how the ephemeral shadow of the fine cambric curtains shimmered on the wall, and he knew that it was true after all. He was awake, and he was in Rivendell, and his long and terrible journey was behind him. It was a sweet spring morning, and he was home.

The effort required to rouse himself from bed was a great one.  His body ached as though he had been flung from a great height and then pummelled by a hill-troll. Just pushing back the bedclothes took a concerted act of will and might. When he was at last sitting with his feet on the floor and his elbows on his knees, Aragorn felt as if he had run the perimeter of the valley twice over. He coughed shallowly, praying it would not awaken any deeper spasm. Mercifully it did not, and he slowly uncurled to face the day.

He had dim recollections of being helped out of his cote and hose by Master Elrond, and of being presented with a tray of food from which he could only graze. He had been too tired to chew, and his stomach more interested in resting quietly against his spine than in relief from its emptiness. In the end he had been put to bed, as he confirmed now, in his travel-soiled body linen. His garments were draped over a chair in the corner of the room, and he eventually roused himself to put them on.

It was with some amusement that Aragorn laced up the artfully embellished tunic and put his feet into the handsomely tooled boots. He was at last in a place where such garments belonged. He was grateful for them at this moment, too, for if he had come to Imladris in the rags he had been wearing when brought before Thranduil, there would have been no hope of being put so swiftly to bed. Each rent and tear and bloodstain would have had to have been investigated upon his body, and the tending of those scabs and scars and shadows of old hurts would have lasted long into the night.

He washed his face and hands, and raked back his hair from his face. Reconsidering, he picked up the comb that sat on the washstand, and returned to the chair to brush out the tangles. It was a tiring business, and left him sorely tempted to crawl back into the kindly shelter of that bed. It was surely his imagination, but it seemed so much more comfortable than the one he had been given in Thranduil’s palace. Certainly the air was sweeter, with the freshness of spring coming through the narrowly opened window. When he felt able, Aragorn rose and went to it, pushing it to its full range and letting the dewy air come in. The Sun was on the other side of the house, and by its shadow Aragorn estimated that he had been abed for at least eleven hours. He felt much stronger for it, though by no means wholly restored.

His stomach, at least, had awakened. He found that he was ravenous. Drawing back from the window he made a last cursory search of the room. Sigbeorn’s cloak was gone, no doubt for cleaning, but the silver star of the Dúnedain still stood on the table by the bed. Aragorn took it up and pinned it at his breast, fingertips hovering upon it for a moment of reverent wonder. He had believed it lost forever when he had fled the orcs in Ithilien. The tale of its discovery and how it had found its way back to him was one of the most wondrous of the entire journey.

The infirmary corridor was quiet, and all the other doors open upon vacant rooms. Aragorn left his own similarly ajar, for the sheets would have to be changed and the wash-water carried off. At another time he might have started in on these chores himself, but at the moment his desire for breakfast was clouding any other thoughts. He had just reached the end of the corridor when a quiet voice called him back.

‘Lord Aragorn?’ The sombre infirmarian had come out of the dispensary, wiping his hands on a snowy towel. ‘I was to fetch your breakfast once you wakened.’

Aragorn smiled, feeling it in the very deepest places of his heart. The air of Rivendell always seemed to have that effect upon him: it enhanced and enriched his joys, and muted his sorrows. Even the manifold aches of his hard-used body seemed healthy rather than pernicious this morning: the first rebuilding of strength after his idle convalescence.

‘I am well enough to seek my own breakfast, Ancalimon: thank you,’ he said. ‘Have you also instructions to inform my father of my waking?’

Mourning eyes brightened just a fraction. Sorrowful and so often silent, the infirmarian had nonetheless been very fond of a certain young pupil of the arts physic, and that fondness had carried forward through the years. ‘You know the Master well, my lord,’ he said.

Aragorn nodded. ‘As well as it is possible for a mortal to know him, I think,’ he said. ‘You may be relieved of that duty: I shall seek him out myself. There are tidings he must be given, and no doubt he will have questions.’

‘No doubt,’ said Ancalimon, but he asked none of his own. Circumspection was an infirmarian’s most valuable trait, apart from compassion. ‘Go and eat, my lord, and I shall see to the room.’

Aragorn thanked him, and went on his way. The infirmary was handy to the kitchens, though far enough removed that the scents of cooking would not disturb patients unsettled in their humours. There he was greeted eagerly by such of the cooks as lingered there in mid-morning. His polite request for food was not necessary: at once they sat him down and laid a bountiful breakfast before him. His eyes could scarcely take it all in, much less his mouth, but he took a thick slice of the fresh Elven bread, still faintly warm from its baking, and a small helping of eggs. His appetite proved far smaller than its voice, for after those were devoured he had space only for another little piece of bread before he could eat no more. Reassuring the head cook that his skill had not diminished, but only the diner’s capacity, Aragorn took his leave.

By now, no doubt, Gandalf had briefed Elrond on the particulars of their parting and the worrisome reunion in the halls of the Elvenking. Aragorn knew the wizard too well to suppose he had disclosed the details of Gollum’s interrogation or the contents of Isildur’s strange record. These were matters of vast import and consequence, and fit for a formal council between the three of them. But the other he certainly would have shared, and in that Elrond would likely have taken the greater interest last night. It was likely that the Master of the house would be in his study at this hour, and it was there that Aragorn hoped to find him.

First, however, he stopped to make a request of those who saw to the needs of the household that a bath be drawn in his chambers. He would feel far more able to cope with his foster-father’s questions if clean and clad in his own clothing. The fine cote that Thranduil’s tailor had orchestrated for him was certainly elegant enough, but it was also a reminder of his dependency and of the ignominious circumstances that had brought him to the point of needing it.

He was in the front corridor, striding stiffly for the stairs, when the voice that most often lived only in the secret places of his heart rang out to him. ‘Estel. You awaken.’

Aragorn’s heart faltered in his breast as he turned and beheld her, thrice as lovely now as she had been the night before. Her hair was loose beneath its net of stars, and her gown was of a pale coral hue perfectly suited to the season. Upon her brow rested wisdom and grace, and in her eyes there was radiant love.

‘Vanimelda,’ he murmured, unable to say more. Beauteous and beloved: was there any more perfect description of his lady?

They did not run to one another, for she was too stately and he too sore, but they closed the distance between them swiftly nonetheless. Arwen held out her hands to him, and Aragorn took them from below. They clasped one another palm to palm, his roughened fingers curling over to touch delicate knuckles with skin soft as velvet. For a moment they looked into one another’s eyes with tenderness and that deep abiding love that neither time nor distance nor bitter labours could dim. In that perfect instant, Aragorn felt a bliss that he had almost forgotten himself capable of feeling. It was as if the miserable road behind him had never been walked at all.

Then Arwen’s eyes changed, widening and seeming to darken all at once. Her lips parted in dismay and she closed the chaste distance between them – half of each of their arms’ easy reach, as they always stood where Master Elrond might see them and be pained. Suddenly she was near enough that her right shoulder nearly touched Aragorn’s left, and she was no longer straight before him.

‘Your hands!’ she cried softly. She held his left now with both of her own, her fingers searching the cracks and fissures and the coarse new skin growing over frost-blisters and chilblains. Her gaze was still fixed intently upon his face, searching it with the piercing eyes of their shared kindred. How disconcerting it was, Aragorn thought, to have such eyes trained upon himself! ‘What has happened to your hands?’

Aragorn used his suddenly bereft right palm to cup her slender elbow. His fingers snagged on the fine silk, and through it he could feel her warmth, her realness. ‘The hands of a swordsman are always rough,’ he demurred.

The sweet pity in her eyes shamed him before she could voice their clear protest: not like this. He cast down his gaze. ‘I was caught bare-handed in winter lands,’ he confessed. ‘It is naught but the cost of hard weathering. They shall soften back to their customary coarseness soon enough.’

The worry upon her brow dimmed a little, and she was able to tear away from his face. Reflexively she looked down, twining her fingers with his while her other palm stroked the back of his hand as if she might speed its healing. Then her mouth moved in fresh horror and she snatched for his right hand as well, pushing back his sleeve to bare the wrist. Only when she stared from one arm to the other did he understand. She had seen the scarlet bracelet of scarring where Gollum’s rope had chafed away his skin, and she was looking for its mate upon the other wrist.

‘My captive’s halter,’ Aragorn explained. ‘I could not always be trusted to keep hold of it, and my first rope was poorly made.’

When she looked up at him again, her silvery eyes were glittering with tears that she refused to shed; tears not of sorrow, he knew, but of relief. Her thumb grazed the place on his right wrist where there was still the faint white ring of an old mark. ‘You must learn to take greater care,’ she said unsteadily, trying to smile. ‘Did not your mother caution you always to carry your mittens?’

A huff of air that was almost a laugh passed Aragorn’s lips. He knew that he was now smiling down upon her in earnest amusement. ‘Aye, she did,’ he said, relishing her teasing wit. ‘And never before have I so rued being a disobedient son.’

Arwen’s own laugh was light and bright as mithril, painted only a little with the lingering anxiety she could not quite hide. She reached to touch the side of his face, the back of her forefinger stroking from the temple to the hollow beneath his cheekbone. She did not say it, but this too he read clearly in her eyes: how thin you are. Then she swept up a trailing tendril of hair and hooked it lovingly behind his ear.

‘You are quite overgrown,’ she declared. ‘Did you not shear it once all the time you were away?’

‘I cut away the worst of the mats in Lóthlorien,’ he told her. It was good to have her focus on something inconsequential, something which amused rather than wounded her. She knew it, of course. ‘But no. Not once in all the time I was away did I shear it. I did not want to come back looking like a balding cat.’

The truth was that he had hardly spared a thought for his hair unless it was to get it clean again. It was well down his shoulder blades now; as long as an Elf-lord’s, and looking it now that it was combed free of its tangles. Arwen had stepped back a pace, and she was drawing a hank of it away from his head with an appraising eye.

‘When you have eaten I shall cut it,’ she decided. ‘Do not think that you may dissuade me in this, Dúnadan, for I come of strong-minded stock.’

‘Never, my Lady,’ he said with playful meekness. ‘And in sooth I have already eaten. Yet may I beg a boon?’

Arwen tilted her head to one side in scholarly consideration. ‘You may,’ she said, merrily prim.

‘Let me go first and bathe,’ he said. ‘I would like, too, to lay by these garments before Glorfindel chances to see them. You are too gracious to laugh, but he will not be.’ It took a great effort to keep his face grave through this speech.

Again she looked down, this time taking in the garments of drab green and rusty brown, with their extravagant appliqués and dainty needlework. The effect was scarcely muted by the mudstains at the hem. ‘You masquerade as a wood-elf, I see. Yes, I suppose I can suffer you to bathe and to don something less gaudy.’ Lightly she fingered one of the oak leaves picked out at his throat. ‘The stitching is very fine,’ she said, pleased beyond an artist’s mere approval.

Aragorn tucked his head to look at her slender and sublimely skilled hand, the Ring of Barahir heavy upon her first finger in token of their troth. ‘Never so fine as yours,’ he whispered.

Arwen laid her palm upon his breast and her merriment gave way to earnest solemnity. ‘I am blessed to have you return to me, Estel. That you do so triumphant is a secondary matter.’

As ever she saw more deeply into his heart than at first it seemed. This was her gentle way of telling him that the self-doubt that haunted him and the shame of despairing of his quest and abandoning it – however briefly—meant nothing to her. Aragorn’s throat was suddenly tight, and his love seemed to ache beneath her touch. He took her other hand and kissed it, though he knew she now felt the roughness of his lips as well.

‘How can I not return,’ he asked; ‘when such a welcome awaits me?’

‘Remember it,’ she said, almost fiercely. ‘You know not what it is to be the one who waits.’

Aragorn took his leave from her then, ascending the stairs with a firm hand upon the bannister. His right ankle protested this unfamiliar motion, for it had not truly been tried upon such steps before. By the time he reached the first landing, his chest was tight and the cough riding high in his throat. The effort of winning through to the corridor that housed his rooms left him drained to the bone. Yet he went in and found that the fire in his anteroom had been lit. Soft shoes had been set at the hearth to warm, and clean towels and fresh garments had been laid out for him. A large tub had been brought and filled with water that steamed with the scent of fragrant oils. A tray of wine and sweetmeats sat upon a low stool beside the bath. And on its velvet plinth upon the mantel lay the shards of Narsil, waiting for their master to bear them once again. Aragorn stood motionless in this familiar space, unable at first to move or to form any thought but the one that filled his heart and dazzled his reason and soothed his battered body.

He was home.