Chapter 25: The Unexpected Corpse
Minas Tirith was a noisy city, that could not be denied, but there were moments when a peace settled over the walled tiers – a peace so complete and content that Gríma found himself comparing it to a still night on Rohan’s plains. Even Meduseld attained such peace when the clunk of slopping mugs and din of boorish laughter finally ceased in the early hours of the midnight watch. From his small and tidy hovel in Edoras, he could hear the Golden Hall subside into silence and, on such nights, it was his custom to slip into the darkness, padding up the hard-packed dirt path to the home of his king, to look undisturbed upon the seat of Rohan’s power.
He shunned the Hall when it bustled with activity, when it rocked with the drunken revels of a returning victorious éored. Long ago, he had discovered that he invited derision through no effort of his own, a curse that had not been lifted with age. There were warriors who, not content with vanquishing a filthy Dunlending or orc, felt need to strike at one of their own. He had bitterly accepted it, forced to witness every day that the strength in a man’s arms and the simplistic ideals in his heart would always be prized more highly than one’s brain in the realm of Rohan.
Gríma inhaled deeply, drawing the sweet summer fragrance into his lungs. Minas Tirith. He had once lived here, and this journey had made him question his commitment to his native land. The Library alone was an irresistible temptation to unpack his scroll case, once and for all. Rather than continuing to pine after the knowledge housed in the White City from such a distance, it would be at his fingertips. Tracts on healing, history, engineering, literature, myth, and so much more. The feel of parchment beneath his fingers was more sensuous to him than the type of indulgences lauded in Rohan. Nightlong conversations between a scholar and a prized scroll raised a fever of its own kind.
Even as the evening breeze strove to purify all it touched, Gríma felt somewhat immune to it. The day’s events guarded against it. His audience with the Ambassador, so interminable, lingered with him like a heavy miasma, though Gríma was slowly discovering that the stench of politics, while still inarguably odious, had an aroma that was strangely compelling. What person had ever sniffed fetid offal or carrion and not instinctively inhaled again, perhaps deeper than before? Ugliness and decay were hardly shunned by vultures and maggots, and what was Man but a minimally elevated form of the same base instincts? The Golden Hall, bursting with life and vigor, attracted flocks of ambitious lords and scions, eager to feast, with the same infallibility as a rotting carcass on the plains.
Gríma brought his hands to his face and vigorously rubbed at his eyes. Feeling awash with weariness, he leaned forward, thin elbows digging painfully into his thighs. Corpses, carrion, death… Always such cold concepts to his body and mind when the heart had not been engaged. His parents were both in sleep eternal through no fault of his own. Death had come for them in sickness and age, and he had accepted at the time that there was nothing he could, or should, do to prevent their departures. If Death were a natural thing, it had been so when those two hardy souls breathed their last.
But not Belaród. That death was laid at the feet of an unvigilant brother, a young man distracted and infatuated by the sudden and overwhelming abundance of intellectual passions, impulses that could finally be indulged and luxuriated in. In his own feast, he had been oblivious to his brother’s famine, a hunger that was enforced and prolonged by an invisible shackle to an unimaginative scholar.
So he broke loose, Gríma thought, and I, in my confusion and impatience, thought him better gone. Convinced myself it was so. Had it not been for that rustic kinswoman of Théoden King, I could have lived out this life, unknowingly content with a lie. I am grateful and ungrateful by turns. But would that she had left Belaród’s saddle bags in Lebennin!
It went against the grain of his learning to favor ignorance, but tonight he would have welcomed never hearing another word about his missing brother as long as he drew breath. But such was not to be. He would soon be face to face with that spectre from the past, a reproach to his carelessness years ago. He would soon be looking upon his brother again.
The Ambassador’s summons this day had been twofold. After a seemingly warm compliment on the thoroughness and diligence with which he had executed his scribal duties during this mission to Minas Tirith, Elfléda had then proceeded to commiserate with Gríma on the death of his brother. These condolences Gríma recalled accepting with due and humble gratitude, hoping that would be an end to it. Speaking of Belaród with the horse breeder’s daughter alone was a willful rending of old wounds; he preferred not to repeat the experience with another.
But the Ambassador was not done, not nearly so. Out of consideration and in honor of Gríma’s father, a good man of Rohan, he was granting his able scribe leave to travel to Lebennin and retrieve Belaród’s remains so that another of Rohan’s sons could forever sleep beneath native soil rather than molder in foreign lands.
It was an honorable and generous gesture, not to mention unexpected, but hardly forgotten by Gríma was the previous evening’s visit by the Ambassador’s most trusted man, Falvöd, to Gríma’s quarters. Playing upon his pride and any desire to advance himself, Falvöd had hinted to him that the Ambassador was quite amenable to having a talented man like Gríma work for him in ways that would not, in Falvöd’s words, “see your final days crippled over a desk, rewriting long-forgotten and unimportant words.” Polite though he tried to be, Gríma knew he had been unable to hide his offended sensibilities at this slur on his profession and preferred path. At the same time, he had been attentive.
Coming quickly on the heels of today’s gift to bring Belaród’s body back to Rohan had been the Ambassador’s off-hand praise, skillfully rendered, that Gríma’s attention to detail was surely not limited to words on a page. Long ago Gríma had learned that silence was the best answer, for it provided bait no fish could resist. Not that Gríma fancied himself an able fisherman, but when one was uncertain of what to say, experience had proven that it was often best to say nothing. Elfléda’s musing, coupled with Falvöd’s more direct appeal to his ambition, rang a clear signal that he was being courted for one reason or another. While flattery was not entirely unknown to him, it was still uncommon enough to give him pause.
It had become nearly instinctive for Gríma to scuttle away from any attempt to pluck him from the throng, though it was perhaps impossible to say he enjoyed the same anonymity as did so many Rohirrim of his plain class and birth. His father’s ambitions for his sons had given him early prominence or, rather, notoriety. More than one neighbor had muttered loudly that if Galmód so passionately wanted his sons to go to Gondor, the entire family could well move there. In such heated comments, the fact that Galmód had, by virtue of his own travels and trade, enriched their lives was conveniently forgotten.
But the Ambassador’s words had not caused him to shy away as past comments by neighbors, childhood peers, and pompous warriors had done. Until Elfléda, never had one so high favored him for what he possessed – an unerring ear, a steady hand, and a discreet tongue. For many years, Gríma had gone unrecognized and had slowly begun to adhere to a creed that he would find satisfaction in his unheralded accomplishments. Who needed advancement? Honors? Hollow praise by the same vultures that would rip into a corpse, or even one still living, with glee? Why should he put himself in the path of jealousy and woe?
So convinced had he become of this that, when Elfléda extended a hand onto a path of distinction, the sudden crumbling of those prideful convictions frightened him. Ambition was rank in any man, he realized, no matter how one tried to guard against it. As the Ambassador had spoken, Gríma saw the Golden Hall again, as desirable in the light of day as in the quietest hours of night.
The intense struggle within his heart as he stood before the Ambassador had nearly rendered him incapable of speech or the presence of mind to divine a course of action. Like a drowning man, he had clung to silence and allowed Elfléda to continue. The praise was not fulsome or elegantly contrived – it was spoken without ornamentation, striking as cleanly into his heart as an arrow. The longer he had remained silent, the weaker he grew. Though he had refrained from immediately accepting whatever duties the Ambassador was entertaining for him, his interest had been impossible to conceal. There would surely be other forays into his ambition, and his defenses were already weakened. Falvöd had begun the assault and, deep down, Gríma felt he would never forgive the man for that.
Gríma heaved a ragged sigh, his fingers continuing to dig into his closed lids. The action prompted tears, and he dashed the burning traitors away. What to do? Remain on his current path as a lowly scribe? He would still suffer indignities, perhaps endure more. To refuse elevation by the king’s most trusted man and diplomat could earn him a new opprobrium. What type of man would refuse Théoden’s ablest lord? Yet, to be seen as a closer member of Elfléda’s circle would attract emotions and possible consequences that he found intolerable.
Yet, everything could be tolerated. Everything. Couldn’t it? Surely the more one endured, the greater the reward. He had read an old scroll saying something to that effect. He recalled a sour mood had led him to dismiss it as misguided nonsense, but today it had not seemed so ridiculous. Would it erase or alleviate the pain of failing mother and father to keep his brother safe? Would it perhaps alter the perceptions of his countrymen, prompt them to think of a man’s worth in other ways?
He was fearfully uncertain, but how would he ever know?
Gríma groaned as his temples began to pound. The cool air was becoming increasingly stagnant around him, and he put it to the endless circles of thoughts and doubts, so strong that nothing was unable to puncture it. He grasped his knees and rocked tensely on the bench he had gladly found upon which to rest and reflect. It was an unremarkable and bulky construction of stone rejected for finer purposes, and it appeared to be as heavy as his spirit. The weight seeped into him, almost deadening his senses, but the creeping chill of night it conducted into his body prompted him to stand. He was still in the shadows, gratefully shrouded in the looming presence of the large Feasting Hall. Though no doubt there were other places on the Citadel that offered solitude, whether by accident or design, the unobtrusive location of this bench had beckoned, as though asking to be his confidante for this and any other night.
Leaning back against the cold, stone wall, he sighed, though not loudly. The exhalation was measured, controlled. Eyes closed, he remained unmoving, almost entranced by the beating of his own heart. Though it had finally slowed after the quickening of shock and ambition had spurred it like a warrior on a charger, it had not yet fully returned to its normal, disinterested pace. Perhaps he was mistaken, but its beat was stronger, more vigorous.
Beyond the pulse that murmured throughout his body and hummed softly in his ears, he heard the scuff of boots. A couple scrapes on the cobblestone, as though someone had carelessly failed to pick up their feet properly. Following this was a muffled curse, leading Gríma to wonder if the unseen passerby was rebuking himself for giving away his presence.
He peered into the darkness, glad that circumstances had placed him in such a vantage point. His observation skills, so well-regarded by Lord Elfléda, could perhaps yield something of note.
The unruly heels scuffed again, and Gríma perceived that whoever it was, the nocturnal lurker was approaching him. From the corner of his eye, a meager beam of torch- or candlelight from a window on the nearly silent Citadel fleetingly caught a cloaked figure. The point of a scabbard distended the cloak, oddly heaving the fabric up and down like a sea swell. Gríma puzzled what motion could accomplish such an effect. A hand fidgeting with the sword hilt, perhaps?
As soon as he observed this mysterious individual, it was gone, and Gríma leaped from the bench without another moment’s thought. He was not such a fool that he didn’t realize the Ambassador and Falvöd had approached him in hopes that he would use his eyes and ears in an expansive way to serve limited interests.
A spy. See, but not be seen. Hear all, but say nothing. What was so different about it that he had not already done? Nothing, as far as Gríma was concerned. For more years than he cared to remember, he had been a consummate observer. If this nighttime wanderer proved to be on innocuous business or was one of the Rohirrim, then he would consider it practice – a trial – and begin actual duty at another time, after he had formally accepted Elfléda’s implied offer of advancement.
This is how it will have to be henceforth, Gríma thought. My habit of doubting and regretting actions has never been of help, but more often an anchor on my courage. Decide, act, accept. A simple enough creed for this Eastemnet boy with more brains than wealth.
Like the ivy that clung to the walls about him, Gríma sidled along the stone as though failing to do so would result in the Citadel guards setting upon him. He had no fear of being challenged, however, for he had become a common sight in the past weeks, hurrying from one building to another. Yet he would not alert anyone to his presence unless propitious.
He paused periodically to gather a sense of where the footsteps were leading him, if they were joined by others, or anything else that might persuade him to abandon this first attempt at deliberate pursuit.
His ears caught the sound of a male voice, but though he appeared to be conversing with someone, Gríma could not hear anything from the other person. Taking advantage of the guard’s distraction, he crossed from one building to another, still clinging to the shadows.
A torch flickered by the entrance to the tunnel that descended to the lower circles of the city, and as Gríma slipped from one building’s protection to the other, he saw two figures in the torch’s light. Little else was visible than what Gríma had glimpsed earlier.
He was about to turn away. Whoever it was was known to the guard. If they wanted to leave the Citadel in the deep of night, it was no one’s affair but their own.
But…the muffled curse returned to his thoughts. Though they had had no qualms about stopping to pass the time of day with the gate guard, they had wanted to get to that point as silently as possible. There was still something worth pursuing.
The figure left the guard and vanished into the tunnel. Gríma waited until a seemly amount of time had passed before he tugged his cloak around him and strolled from the shadows and proceeded directly towards the tunnel entrance.
The guard halted him and peered but briefly into his face before the expected recognition dawned in the man’s eyes. “Ah, it’s you.”
Gríma affected an innocuously agreeable smile and was immediately aware that it pulled at his mouth with the oddest sensation. “You seem tired, friend,” he said. “A long night?”
“The longest,” was the reply. “More than half the people asking leave are on their way to get gloriously drunk and have been tormenting me with their plans.”
Gríma checked the snort of disgust that nearly escaped him. Gloriously drunk. It was a marvel any business was ever completed in Rohan and Gondor, unless centuries of cohabitation with fermented brew had given decision-making with a pounding head a certain unique accuracy for wisdom.
“Indeed,” he replied dryly. “Well, I shall not torment you terribly, though I am thirsty.”
“Then you’re in luck,” he was told. “If you hurry along, you may overtake the last person I let pass. She’s on her way to down an ale or two.”
“She?”
“Yes, Lord Boromir’s woman,” the guard went on. “You must know her. I hear she’s leaving with you Rohirrim shortly.”
Gríma was uncertain if he had heard relief in the man’s voice. Interesting. “I do know her,” he ventured, “and I gather she has already carved a niche for herself on the Citadel. Considering she has been here but a short time, I find that admirable.”
“It’s the Captain who’s done it,” the guard replied, without hesitation. Obviously, the long watch and tormenting tavern tales had loosened his tongue. “He gets a certain way about him if the itch is too great, and this one’s under his skin something fierce. Once she leaves, his mind should go back to where it should be.”
“Oh, I don’t know,” Gríma responded with a puzzled shrug. “In all of the meetings I’ve been privy to, your captain has been remarkably lucid, the matters at hand seeming to occupy him fully. I haven’t seen a speck of distraction about him. Certainly not for a female, of all things.”
“Oh ho! Not to your liking, then?”
“What?”
“Females. Not to your liking, I assume. From your tone.”
“My preferences are based on merits, and merits alone,” Gríma retorted coldly. “Not some ridiculous possession, or lack thereof, of an appendage.”
The guard laughed, seemingly disinclined to take offense. He obviously found this riled little foreigner amusing. “Hurry along,” he said, waving towards the tunnel. “Should you catch up with her, you can charm her away from the Captain with that wit of yours.”
Barely leashing the annoyed snarl that threatened to bubble from his throat, Gríma left the still-chuckling man behind and descended into the damp enclosure. Bored minds could derive pleasure from any little thing, it seemed.
The mild snap in the subterranean air began to cool his temper and Gríma regretted that he had been so easily provoked, especially on such a pointless matter as virility. Granted, he hadn’t responded as would most Rohirrim if their masculinity had been so baldly ridiculed. A caustic retort was much less injurious than a solid blow to the jaw or a bone-crunching tackle to the cobblestones. He had seen that other scenario played out before him on several occasions within Edoras, akin to watching two brutish animals grunting and bludgeoning each other to assert dominance. All the same, that his mere appearance prompted others to think he had not a virile pretension in his body irked him more than he would admit aloud. Did one practically need to rut in the streets to gain respect? The more he thought about it, the more Gríma wondered if he was suited to, well, anything if it involved other people.
Distract yourself, Gríma, he thought. But focus on pursuit. He did not know why he was proceeding with his plan to trail the shadowed figure, now revealed by the guard as Myrhil. If she was skulking around at night behind Boromir’s back to get a drink, then that was her affair. At least she had had sense enough to bring a sword for protection. Though Minas Tirith was safer than many other towns in the region, one’s well-being was not immediately guaranteed when walking about in the deepest hours of the night.
He hurried along the cobbled decline, pushing away any thoughts that he was scurrying like a rat. The soft soles of his boots made barely a sound as he continued down the tunnel, allowing Myrhil’s strides to faintly echo unimpeded. She would soon be approaching the exit and could disappear into the morass of alleys and shadows. Hence, Gríma hastened his steps so that, even if he did not overtake her, she would hopefully remain in his sight.
Upon reaching the other end of the tunnel, he expected to see her well on her way down the street, but was forced to quickly halt when he glimpsed her standing a short distance away. Shrinking into the shadow of the entrance, Gríma watched and waited. The scabbard was again doing its oddly nervous dance under the edge of her cloak, and Gríma felt his curiosity keen within him like a winter wind. Though he had spoken dismissively of her as a “female” with the guard, if Gríma was honest with himself there was little he had witnessed about the horse breeder’s daughter, beyond physical features, that made such an opinion accurate and just. And her tie to Belaród catapulted her into his conscience as more noteworthy than most other women.
After she had taken whatever respite she required before embarking onto the meat of her business, Myrhil set off. Two sentries manned the entrance to the Citadel, but they logically paid little heed to those who were descending into the city. Gríma surmised that only those wanting to gain access warranted inquiry. Still, he needn’t arouse any suspicions unnecessarily, so he left the seclusion of the tunnel and, with a subdued smile and a tip of the hand to the guards as he passed, he followed his quarry.
It was not long before Gríma began to doubt that a tavern was Myrhil’s objective. Though they passed several as their path wound down the mountainside, Myrhil did not even pause outside their doors. What surprised him was that when she did stop, and he had taken shelter in a nearby doorway, it was before a squat stone building. If he was not mistaken, it was a gaol, one of the various pits into which drunkards and brawlers were tossed to soak their heads and sleep off their indulgences. A small, barred window was set high on the wall to the right of the door. It was dark, leading Gríma to ponder if there was no guard on duty and, had there been, if Myrhil would have turned smartly on her heel and beaten a retreat to the Citadel.
From his post of observation, Gríma watched Myrhil satisfy herself that no one was approaching from either direction, then proceed onward to the gaol itself. In one seemingly fluid motion, the lock opened with a soft thunk and the door swung open into the inky blackness of the interior, even darker than the night without. Unless her position on the Citadel included rights to bear gaoler’s keys, Gríma was inclined to believe that she had filched them from her unwatchful Captain.
When Myrhil disappeared inside, leaving the door ajar only slightly, he leaned more fully against the humble alcove in which he stood. As he did so, muscles relaxed that he hadn’t realized were tense. Yet his eyes remained fixed and intent on the heavy planks of the gaol door and the slender strip of black, his one wedge into whatever mischief she was up to.
You should be nervous, Myrhil. If anyone discovers you, your hide will be worthless.
In the manner of those who plan their justifications on the slimmest logic, Myrhil told herself that she was not truly disobeying any orders by coming to the gaol with a purloined key. She had not been told to stay away from the suspect or his cell. Boromir was preoccupied with other matters and she didn’t wish to add her troubles to his. Faramir had carried out his interrogation to his satisfaction and would most likely be disinclined at further attempts to persuade the suspect to talk freely. Convinced she already knew the answers to whatever questions she could put to Faramir, there was no sense going that route out of pure formality.
So she was taking matters into her own hands. Though she now tried to calmly plan her reasoning in the event of her discovery, she had actually acted on impulse. Dissatisfied with the few meager details Boromir had seen fit to share (there were more, she was certain), she had seen his cumbersome ring of keys laying half-hidden under his discarded cloak and grabbed them without pausing to reconsider. Even greater than the task of stealing them was the problem of keeping such a large, jangling item quiet, and her right hand had been clenched around the keys every step of her journey.
She knew Faramir would immediately assume she wanted to resume her forceful methods with the prisoner, and that it was the motive behind this secretive visit, but her loss of control that afternoon had rattled her, made her begin to question her mettle. Never had she lost her temper to such a degree, not even when Larhend had been at his most infuriating. Perhaps without the intimidating presence of Denethor’s sons and her onus of providing Faramir with a positive identification, she could speak to the man calmly and, hopefully, learn more of what he knew.
The absence of any light within the jail had given her pause and relieved her at the same time. Had a guard been on duty, she would have turned back. But, surely, the prisoner was important enough to warrant a guard? Unless Faramir had had the man conveyed to the Citadel, there to enjoy more distinguished confinement. But Boromir had not mentioned any such thing. Or perhaps he had deliberately omitted sharing that development with her, given her behavior that morning.
You’re being suspicious and ridiculously distrustful, she thought. And of someone who doesn’t deserve such doubts. However, though Myrhil knew it was unjust, she could not help but feel the age-old notion that the plight of the bereaved – the nagging questions and burning demands – were beyond the comprehension of those outside the family. Boromir had loved her father, but he was not blood. That, in the end, made all the difference.
And there was no possible way Boromir could fathom her grief for Belaród. Dubious character or not, he had been her first and those brief months together had been as remarkable, in their way, as these past weeks with Boromir. Perhaps even more so; her impatience and Belaród’s own impetuousness had been very similar, nearly an immediate understanding between them. He had prodded her to be discontent, to want more than what she was allowed, and he himself always claimed he had left a stifling home behind. More than once, she had considered leaving with him to go wherever he desired. Of course, now that she knew the company he had kept was cutthroat, she was relieved she hadn’t been so rash, else she might have also found herself jailed or slain for doing wrong. Just as this man in the corner cell had been.
Myrhil started when she realized she had lingered by the door, her mind and heart taking a thousand leaps and steps before her feet had moved. Slowly, she began to inch her way across the gaol, ears straining for a sound – any sound – to come from the cells.
In the darkness, she was aware of things gone unnoticed that morning, such as the nearly imperceptible slope of the floor. A steady drip into what sounded like a cistern told her that there was a drain in the gaol floor where any waste could be easily disposed of, a bucket of water sluiced across the flagstone taking it down into the sewers.
Just as her nostrils flared at the coppery tang of blood, she felt herself dropping through the floor, one leg plunging into a hole and throwing her violently off-balance. She flung out her arms in a desperate bid to prevent pitching headlong on the unforgiving stones. Her leg was wrenched slightly, but she was able to heave herself out of the hole. As she did so, her elbow whacked a heavy piece of metal that chattered against the floor. The grate that should have been in place over the drain…
Myrhil had little time to ponder the state of the drain lid because her nose wrinkled sharply at the smell of blood, now more pungent than before. The hair on the back of her neck bristled as the pitch darkness of the gaol suddenly transformed into something undeniably menacing.
The open drain… Blood… Had there been another intruder here before her arrival? Or had one of the prisoners easily reached despair and ended their own life?
She remained hunkered close to the floor, all of her senses peeled to their most bare and alert. As she lay there, she became gradually conscious of a slick substance on her left hand. Belaród’s blood had felt the same, and she rolled away from it, rattling the drain lid again.
Panic began to cloud what little vision she had gained after her eyes’ acclimation to the darkness. She crawled backwards until she felt her foot nudge the wall, and stood up to lean against it, fearing that she would not know her bearings if she remained unanchored to a fixed point. The thin echo of the metal grate still whined in her ears, and Myrhil thought she could hear all sorts of sounds whirling around her, not least of which was the rapid thrumming of her heart.
Then one sound rose above the others, joined by another. The soft brush of leather on leather, the crunch of grit under a boot. Both were steady sounds; not hesitant, not anxious, not weary. Even though her sword had been rattling against her leg, telling whoever it was that there was an armed person in here with them, it was not giving them pause. They were apparently confident they had the advantage in weaponry. Myrhil silently cursed herself for not bringing her knife. These tight quarters made sword fighting difficult, if not impossible.
But the other intruder was not making any move towards combat. There was no ring of steel being drawn or the opening salvo of a grunted lunge. Instead, it was achingly quiet, as though the gaol nearly begged to be set free from the silent tension contained within its walls.
Myrhil nearly leapt out of her skin when the blackness before her loomed even blacker. Whoever it was had decided the time was right to either strike or make a mad dash towards escape. The grate rattled, betraying the intruder’s exact location. If he opted to flee the way he had come, rather than using the now-open door, Myrhil feared she would never be able to catch him and, once again, a culprit would slip through her fingers. She couldn’t allow another failure.
Without pausing to reconsider, she shoved herself away from the wall, drawing her sword. The challenge did not go unmet, for she immediately heard the curt answer of a long knife being unsheathed. She instinctively ducked and hurled herself at the person’s knees in an effort to upset their balance.
They both crashed to the floor, grunting in unison at the impact. However, what little advantage Myrhil was able to gain was quickly erased when a heavy boot caught her on the side of her head, sending her senses into a blind reel. Darkness was replaced with an intense starburst of white. In desperation, she clung to her sword as though it had been grafted to her hand. Unless it was ripped from her, she was determined not to relinquish it.
Myrhil scrambled clumsily on all fours, trying to right herself. She gave a sharp yelp of pain and surprise when the same heavy boot delivered a kick squarely in her stomach, causing her to gag on the nausea that lodged in her throat.
Her choices were quickly narrowing. Lay prone on the floor and pretend unconsciousness to escape further injury, thus allowing him to slip away, or throw whatever she had at him and hope luck would favor her.
The decision was torn from her as she felt two powerful hands grabbing both shoulders and hauling her to her feet. Stunned, she remained limp, but regretted her unresisting posture when she was shoved like a doll against the wall of the gaol. The pain that shot through her shoulder was agony enough, but nothing prepared Myrhil for the sheer terror of an iron grip around her throat. Held fast against the stone, lifted off her feet, she kicked frantically but was unable to land a disabling blow.
Panic like nothing she had ever known flooded her body and mind. She tried to scream, but only a hoarse blat would come forth. She had no knife, and he knew she didn’t. Drawing her sword had said plainly that she had no other weapon, for it was the last useful and most cumbersome blade to wield in such tight, dark quarters. Myrhil squeezed her eyes shut, waiting for the knife she knew he possessed to slip between her ribs. Eru grant that it would be a faster death than slowly being strangled.
She swore she could feel the prick of the blade against her side when her assailant’s grip around her throat clenched tighter before going completely slack.
The rush of air into her lungs overwhelmed her. Pitching forward, Myrhil landed on the body of the man who, just a moment before, had been so close to ending her life.
There was no room in her tangled senses to ponder what had just happened and how she had been delivered from it. When she felt another grip on her shoulder, she didn’t process its more gentle pressure. Instinctively, she flailed away from it, certain she had only escaped death to have it visited upon her by another. In her movements, one hand brushed a knife hilt and she grasped it. Yet it was stuck fast in something and not easily removed…
“Myrhil.”
Hearing her name was like a splash of cold water on her face. Surprise was quickly joined by confusion as she recognized the voice. But it couldn’t be…
“Gríma?” Her voice broke and she was seized by a fit of coughing as her throat rebelled at the exertion of that one simple word.
“Yes.”
Strange as it seemed, Myrhil was relieved to see him, though it was more his presence she felt since he was not actually visible.
His hand closed over hers – the one gripping the knife – and withdrew the blade with a soft squelch.
“Yours?” she asked, not confident she could say more without succumbing to another spate of coughing.
“Yes.” In a brief instant, the knife was no longer in her hand and Myrhil recalled the day in the library when she had first met the scribe. The knife was no doubt once again clean and residing in the sheath he had strapped to his wrist, cunningly concealed under his sleeve. If he had struck tonight as swiftly as she believed him capable, her assailant had been completely unprepared. It shocked her that he had just killed another with precision and calm, but then she recalled his actions on the hunt and his skill with the bow. Perhaps not so strange after all.
“I’ll not ask why you’re here,” he began, interrupting Myrhil’s musings, “but we can’t linger.”
“We can’t leave—” A ragged gasp as she inhaled. “—him here.”
“Were there others? Prisoners?”
“There were three—here this morning. One’s been killed…I think.” Gradually she was breathing easier, though her voice still remained a thin croak.
A sound of frustration and worry came from Gríma. “Care to venture a light, should we find one?”
Myrhil hesitated. Already there was enough for Denethor to imprison them both for life or send them into exile in Harad or some other wasteland.
“Let’s simply run,” she said, “before anyone comes to investigate whatever noises they might have heard.”
“Loose ends, Myrhil,” he said. “This gaol is teeming with them. Besides, no one has been near this building for some time and, I safely assume, for awhile longer.”
The realization struck her. “You—you followed me?”
“Curiosity,” he answered hastily. “But we have other business.”
He left her and Myrhil could hear him walking around the gaol, ostensibly searching for a lantern or candle stub. While he did this, Myrhil crawled away from the body and towards the center of the room. Coming upon the drain, she ran her hand around the opening and found the circumference quite large. It was a wonder she had not fallen bodily into it.
From the corner of the room, light sparked then settled into a soft glow. She looked over to see Gríma shielding the light with one hand as he walked over to the cells.
“Blood,” he told her. “Running under the door.” His hand went to the latch. “Still locked. Either the prisoner killed himself – unlikely – or our good friend over there was able to get him close to the small window here, grabbed him, and slit his throat.”
“That,” Myrhil replied. “I grabbed hold of the man today through the window, so what you say could’ve happened.”
Gríma turned and regarded her with open suspicion. “Did I rescue a murderer from another one?” he asked. “Would this man here have died anyway?”
“No!” she protested. “I wasn’t going to kill him, not when he had answers about Belaród.”
The scribe was unable to mask his surprise and interest, but he didn’t pursue it. Glancing quickly through the windows of the other two cells, he concluded, “I can see nothing. Only one man must have been in here tonight. Now, let’s look at the other one.”
Myrhil pivoted on her heels, where she had remained crouched by the drain hole, and began to crawl back to the body when Gríma gasped. She snapped her head up and was frightened to see the normally pallid face now stark white, even in the yellow candlelight. He was staring down at the body with the same expression as one discovering a viper at their feet.
Myrhil’s gaze followed his and her chest clenched painfully when she saw the strong and unmistakable features of Elfléda’s trusted soldier.
Falvöd.