Chapter 5. Haunting Hope
As they spoke, they glimpsed Aragorn departing the chamber where Éowyn lay, with Gandalf and Pippin following close behind, bound for the little Halfling’s room.
“I am calm now,” said Théodred to Boromir, his composure largely restored. “Let me go in. I shall not cause a scene—nor haunt Éomer. Not here. Not yet. I am patient. I can wait.”
“Good,” Boromir released him—and nearby, Snowmane pricked an ear, as if to voice his doubts. “I must see to my brother as well—and learn more of what has passed. I shall meet you here by midnight.”
When Théodred stepped inside once more, he halted—staggered by a sight that pierced him more keenly than all the doom-shadowed hours before. To his great relief and joy, Éowyn was awake at last: pale, weary, and sparing of speech, but breathing. And beside her, Éomer was in tears—his young, bold, and proud cousin, weeping openly, unashamed—a sight Théodred had not seen since the fires of childhood sorrow last broke through the boy’s pride.
The frustration he had harboured—born of grief for Éowyn, dear to him as a sister; of Éomer’s seeming blindness to her pain; and of the helplessness that death had laid upon him—ebbed away in that moment.
Éomer—how well he remembered him, when first he came to dwell in Meduseld: eleven years old, not yet near the gate of manhood, wide-eyed and eager. From the start, he had looked up to Théodred as to a far-elder brother and a hero—just as Théodred himself had once gazed upon Éomund, Éomer’s father. He had served as his squire with unwavering devotion, idolizing him with the whole of his young heart. Quick to laugh, quick to anger, and quicker still to move—and to forgive—Éomer had been a storm of fire and loyalty in those days, ever chasing at his elder cousin’s heels.
“You shall lead, and I will follow,” he had once said—so naturally, so certainly, as if it were a truth that could never be undone, nor shadowed by doubt. “You will be King of the Mark, and I will be your Marshal.”
And Théodred had answered him: “Brother—whatever I have, it is yours also.”
And now, he saw not the Third Marshal of the Mark, nor the King of Rohan newly named—but the boy he had once known, laid bare in sorrow, and still true.
For a long moment, he simply watched—Éomer murmuring his remorse for all he had failed to see, and Éowyn, at last, giving voice to burdens long borne in silence. Not all tears are an evil. There was strength in it, and with it, a healing he could not bring himself to disturb. [1]
The man called Thorongil—or Aragorn—was absent from this hour. It belonged to them alone: kin of the same house, bound not only by blood, but by a love forged over long years.
At last, Théodred stepped forward, and with a gesture born more of instinct than intent, reached as if to hold them both—though his hands could no longer touch. Yet even so, he lingered in that stillness, savouring the rare peace that had come, after so many days of war and fear and loss.
And yet, even then, he thought wryly, I still mean to haunt some sense into him. The way he looked at Aragorn—it was as if he had found another brother to follow… or a father, by that man’s years.
And Théodred—though he would never have spoken it aloud—felt a flicker of jealousy. I have been gone but twenty days, he thought. One might expect a longer mourning—or at the very least, a delay before such swift allegiance was given to another. The thought brought with it no small measure of dissatisfaction, and only deepened his resolve to haunt him—later. For now, he would settle for this peace.
Later, when he met Boromir in the garden, they were both truly calm. By unspoken accord, they turned together toward the path that led to the Seventh Circle and the Citadel.
The way was just as Théodred remembered it from the procession earlier that day. Mundburg—Minas Tirith—the proud city steeped in history, learning, and renown—had filled him with awe when he first beheld it in his early twenties. The sheer labour it must have taken to raise such a city lay far beyond his imagining. Indeed, he could not picture his own people setting their will to such a task.
Nor, he thought, as they passed the Court of the Fountain and the barren White Tree that stood at its heart, would his people ever choose to dwell here. It was too high, too confined, too narrow. Even the wind was tamed and bound within these walls.
Boromir, by contrast, moved with ease—this was his home, his city, the place he had known and loved all his life—perhaps even more so in death.
Together they made their way toward the Hall of the Tower. But ere they crossed its threshold, a familiar voice rang out—firm and clear, yet touched with wryness. Boromir knew that tone well, having dealt with Théodred’s kind before—his own father not least among them.
“Boromir the brave,” it said. “The young perish and the old linger—I once spoke so. But never did I think to see you—and my son—linger as well.” [2]
Boromir halted in his step and bowed low, out of true respect—one warrior to another.
“Hail, Théoden King,” he said. “Would that we had met beneath a brighter sun—but as the old saying goes, better a meeting than a parting. I am glad indeed to behold you once more, and gladder still to see you as you were, in the fullness of your strength.”
He spoke true, and not from courtesy alone. For within the great Hall, beside a stately bier arrayed in hangings of green and white, and behind twelve guards—knights of both Rohan and Gondor—stood a figure both noble and spectral: Théoden King, no longer bound by flesh, his hair shimmering once more with the hue of sunlight, and his face younger and fairer than in life.
The King laughed. “Not bad—for one who believed his tale had ended in honour and renown, only to discover it had not ended after all.”
They entered the Hall and made their way to the King, passing the guards without heed. Théodred went at once to embrace his father, as he had always done in life; and though no longer bound by flesh, the gesture still bore meaning. Boromir, unaccustomed to such open displays of affection between father and son, followed the custom he knew best: he bowed his head, and laid one hand upon his breast in solemn respect.
“We have wondered, too, why we linger still,” said Théodred. “At first, we thought it might be the Elvish blood in our veins—however thin—but even that cannot wholly explain it.”
Boromir nodded, a shadow of thought behind his eyes; clearly, he had pondered it long.
“I am no loremaster,” he said, “but all our teachings from the elder days speak one truth: that Men are mortal, and their fate is to depart. Any other state is unnatural—and in the end, leads only to darkness and ruin. As for lineage, the line runs but one way: any with mortal blood must share the Doom of Men—barring rare exceptions, which surely do not apply to us.”
“Then even if we linger for a time—for now—our hour shall come,” said the King with a slow nod. “For I perceive no shadow in you—nor in myself.” He paused, then added more gently, “But let us speak no more of the dead—for the living still need our care.” Turning to Théodred, he asked, “How fares Éowyn? Since you come to me now with light in your face, I trust she is well?”
“Not well, perhaps,” Théodred sighed, “but surely better than before. I suppose you know what passed between her and Aragorn?”
The King raised a brow, blinked, and then let out a long sigh. “So that is why she came. I should have known—”
“No,” Théodred said softly, correcting him. “That was not the only reason. We all presumed too much, I think—and misjudged her. And so the sorrow unfolded. I only hope she may yet heal… at least in body.” And if she does not, he thought to himself, then I shall haunt the one who broke her heart. We shall see.
They were silent for a while, until at last the King turned to Boromir. “And how fares your father, the Lord Steward? I have not seen him since I was brought here, but I assumed—amidst the war’s tumult—that he must be devoting all his strength and will to the defence of this City. It would be like him, indeed, to spare no time for the dead.”
Boromir was quiet for a moment before he answered. “My father… has passed.”
The King drew a breath—though it carried no air—and grief welled in his voice. “A grievous loss,” he said. “The day is darker still, if ill fate has also claimed Denethor the steadfast, Lord Steward of Gondor. Was he struck down by a foe beyond him—like the one I faced?”
Boromir drew a long breath in kind. “It was not as you thought, my lord,” he said at last.
Then he spoke—of what he had gleaned from the accounts of Beregond and Pippin, who had witnessed all that passed in the Hallows and spoken of it, unaware of his nearness: the despair, the fire, the end. His voice frayed toward the close—hoarse, raw with grief, and edged with fury. Even Théodred, who had known the outcome, had never heard the tale in such full and harrowing detail—and now felt, with bitter clarity, that his earlier remark, “Old men have their reasons,” had fallen woefully short of the truth. The King, too, stood long in silence, struck by sorrow—and by a quieter, deeper shock.
“I wanted to ask him why,” Boromir said at last, his voice barely more than a whisper. “But as you have seen… he did not linger.”
After a pause, he continued. “I do not understand it. Would he not wish to know whether my brother lives? Would he not want to see if there remains even the smallest chance of holding the darkness at bay, just a little longer? He was the last man I would ever have thought to break—whether in life... or beyond it.”
“Then it is hope,” said the King.
Seeing both turn to him, puzzled, he went on:
“Your father surrendered it—entirely. He could not bear to remain and face disappointment—not once more. But we—the three of us—yet hold to it: hope that something good, something better, lies ahead for those we love… and a sorrow deep as the sea, that we did not live to see it fulfilled. And so, by some strange grace granted to us, we linger—to witness it, if we may.”
His gaze shifted to the empty throne upon the dais.
“That, I deem, is why we remain.”
Notes:
[1] [2] Words highlighted in these paragraphs are quoted from LotR.