The Broken Men

Ithilien, March, F.A. 17

The house had stood in the valley for as long as Léof had lived. As far as he remembered, it had always been there, set a little to one side of the main road down to the river, a quiet place with a garden all around. Léof did not remember Ithilien before. He did not remember the long years of strife, of swift cruel battle beneath the trees, when the silver streams of his father-land ran red, and wearied men dug shallow graves for their comrades, saying quick quiet words over them before turning to the next task. No, Léof was a child of peace. Ithilien was home: a well-ordered land that prospered. Léof had no memory of darkness. But the men of the house did.

His mother had built the house, and ordered it. She had made the rooms white and quiet. She had the windows look West towards the river, or North towards the forest. She prevailed upon a Wood-elf to make gardens that would soothe the most troubled mind. She filled the house with her fierce healing love, and when all was ready, the men had come.

They bore the past like soldiers burdened with packs. They sought respite; sought some relief from the horrors they had seen, the desolations. Some stayed only a little while. A few weeks, perhaps, or a month, to find some peace before returning to the wider world. Some had come here as a last resort and would never leave. Most had nightmares, some outbursts of weeping. Some trembled all the time. Some simply sat and would not speak. But whatever ailed them, the house accepted them. Everyone who came in search of consolation was welcome. There was a place for them there.

And they loved their champion, Lady Wraithbane, the White Lady of Ithilien, who had killed the pale king, who slew monsters. They were hers: the army of broken men. She had fought for them, and still fought, and they would fight for her, and hers. And they would fight for each other: brothers in arms; brothers in scars.

The year his older brother became a lieutenant in the army, and his older sister went to study in the City, Léof, the second son of the Prince of Ithilien, found himself chafing against the borders of his world for the very first time.

The old haunts were too familiar. Down by the bend in the river, old Belecthor, the oldest man in the province, still held court on his bench beside the road, watching the traffic and gossiping to whoever came past. Up the hill beyond Léof's home, the old house quietly fell further and further into the grass, the rusted gate creaking in the wind. He knew the grounds, and the road, and the woods beyond the wall. He knew the shortcut up to the place where the best view of the White City was to be had, and he knew the traps and snares that had been left behind, that he and his brother and sister had found, and never quite mentioned to Father. The best times were the clear nights when the Elves were singing, and Léof climbed the old tree beyond the wall, and listened to their voices, and dreamed of the other lands and stars that he would one day see.

The house down in the valley was the same as ever too. Sometimes Léof went there with Mother on her rounds, helping her to carry her remedies, and he would sit and listen while she talked to the men. They loved to see her, their Lady, and they loved to see him too, this thoughtful, blond-haired boy who missed nothing and would one day leave this valley on journeys they could no longer make. Sometimes a trembling hand would ruffle his hair, or a man would brush away his tears at the sight of his youth and his promise, and Léof would look back calmly, and lay everything in store for later contemplation. He went more often to the house than either Elboron or Morwen; his brother found the place unnerving, his sister upsetting. Father never went there. But he would listen to Léof and his mother when they told tales about their visits, and enquire about the health of their favourites, and whatever Mother wanted for her house he would supply.

So when the Southron arrived at the house in the valley, Léof was ready to be intrigued. He heard about him first from Belecthor, of course, who had seen the man come down from the ferry and head on up the road towards the house.

"About a week ago. Scars all around here," the old man said, braceleting his wrists with thumb and forefinger, and shaking his head, as if Léof was meant to know what this might mean. "But courteous. Stopped to pass the time of day, and there's not many that bother now. A word or two of the old grey speech as well. Still, a man from the South…" he said, and then remembered his audience. "On your way, young sir," he said. "Or your mother will have my hide."

He joined Mother on her next visit, of course, keeping his ear to the ground for intelligence about this new arrival. He did not have to listen hard. The nurses were full of the news. A Southron, here, in their quiet home. One or two shook their heads; no good could come of this. But Mother would have none of it. "North, South, West – all are in need of healing," she said, before inspecting the laundry, and leaving a list as long as her arm.

Still, Léof now knew where to find him. And the following afternoon, released at last by his tutors, he went to the kitchens and gathered his offering, and headed down the hill.

A few of the men greeted him as he made his way through the garden. Others were sleeping in the warm spring sun. Some of the men here, he thought, you would not know what ailed them. He guessed that there were bad dreams, shaking fits, terrible episodes where the savage past seemed more real than the steady present. Léof had only known peace, but he was an observant and intelligent child.

Beyond the house and the kitchen garden, a path wound its way for half-a-mile or so, until it crossed a stream. A little way beyond this, stood an old building with no windows and tumbledown walls. From the stones and bricks that lay around, it had been a much bigger place, once upon a time: a lodge, perhaps, on the old estate, but now there was a single bare room, a small cottage.

The door hung precariously. Léof opened it fearlessly and went inside.

The room was bare, stripped to the bone. Walls of stone and carpeted with earth and the brown leaves of an earlier autumn. To his left, near the door, a man was peering at the wall. He turned when Léof entered, startled. When he saw the boy, he clasped his hand to his heart and muttered a strange and alien curse.

"Hullo," Léof said, setting down his offering: bread, fruit, cheese, and some good apple pie. "My name is Léof. What are you doing?"

His name was Hakam. He was a painter. He sat on the ground and shared the boy's feast. He was thin, and dark-eyed, and when he rolled up the sleeves of his thin shirt to paint, Léof saw the strange marks upon his wrists.

When the meal was done, Hakam reached for his palette and began to mix red paint with yellow. The boy watched a fiery orange emerge. "But what are you painting?" Léof asked. With his brush, Hakam pointed to the wall behind him.

Léof turned. There, on the wall, was an old frieze, left over from the days when this had been a home, a place where people took their ease. Almost a century had passed, at least, and the figures now were in the main, ghostly, except where Hakam had been at work. Here and there, bright shapes were beginning to appear. As he studied the wall closely, Léof began to discern a pattern: this was a frieze, twelve scenes in all, three rows of four. Hakam was working more or less in order, so that the first panel was all but done, but here and there on the lower edges a few lines had been marked out. Léof sat on the ground and watched

This, thought Léof, was worth knowing more about. So each afternoon of the following week, released from his studies, he went to the cottage, and mixed the paints, and watched the images emerge from the wall.

"Do you know what these pictures mean?" asked Hakam, towards the end of the week, gesturing with his brush towards the wall.

There was a golden city over which three Eagles flew. There was a proud stern king with an unhappy queen. A mighty fleet and a humbled God.

"No," he said.

"Ask your father," said Hakam.

Léof did, at supper later, after he had walked Hakam back down the path to the house, and then on to his own home. His father would know the building, of course. There wasn't an inch of Ithilien that Father had not slept on, over the years.

"The old lodge?" Father said. "What has taken you there?"

So Léof explained.

Mother and Father were in the still room, talking about him. Father was chopping up yellow-wort, while Mother boiled water. Léof, the Ranger's son, found a quiet spot beyond the door where he could sit and watch and listen to them, unobserved.

"I know that he misses Bron and Morwen," his father said. "But I am uneasy about this new companion." He showed Mother the leaves. "How are these?"

She peered at his handiwork. "A little more finely, please."

The Prince bent dutifully again over his task. The still room was Mother's domain: Father came here on sufferance, and on condition of complete obedience. Here she made the remedies for the household – and the house in the valley – and tested other remedies for the clinics she had established throughout the princedom and the lower circles of the City.

She watched Father work like a hawk. "That'll do," she said at last. She scooped up a handful of the herbs from the pile, and put them into the strainer on the mug. "Which companion is this?"

"From your house." Carefully, Father cleaned his knife and put it back on his belt. "The painter. Léof has spent much of the past week with him."

The pot had boiled. Mother poured hot water over the herbs, and let the tea steep for a while. Then she spooned in honey, and passed the mug to Father. "You mean the Southron."

He drank. "Aye."

Mother put her hands upon her hips and watched him. His head was bowed over the mug, which he cradled in both hands. "We've been at peace for half a dozen years now, love," she said. "You wrote the treaty, as I recall."

"In part," he said, and drank more of his tea. "But you misunderstand what troubles me."

She began to clear away the rest of the cut herbs, ready for later doses, and moved the chopping board and strainer to one side for washing. "What, then, troubles you?"

"That we know naught of his history," Father said. "Naught of what has brought him to us—"

"The men who come to my house come for much the same reasons," Mother replied. "They are looking for peace. For healing. You of all men—" She stopped herself.

He looked at her sternly over the cup. "Indeed," he said. "And I understand too how it can be when one is caught unawares – by a sudden noise, perhaps… startled, the need to defend oneself… one strikes out—"

"You would never hurt a child!"

"No," said Father. "Iwouldn't."

Her eyes flashed. She shot back, "You think I would imperil him? My own son?"

"Now that is not what I said—"

"That I would leave him with a man about whom I was uncertain?"

His father held up his hands, palms out. "Peace, Éowyn. I have no wish to quarrel."

"Nor I," she said. "And yet, here we are." She busied herself with the washing up, while he sat in silence and drank his tea. "Is it that he is sick?" she said, her back still to him. "Or that he is a Southron?"

Father drained the dregs of his tea. He stood up, and took the mug over for her to wash. They were standing right next to each other but did not touch. "I would never say such a thing," he said, softly. "Never."

"Say, no," she said, turning to look straight at him. "But might you think it?"

Father turned away. He walked over to the doorway, and halted on the threshold. He looked hurt and sad. "Say rather that I fear it." One arm had come across to cover his body, like a shield, hand upon his side. The other hand held his shoulder, as if his body spoke some memory or bore some witness. "And I would beg you to consider, Éowyn, that perhaps my fears are not baseless."

Later, on his way to supper, Léof watched them with interest. As a rule, their quarrels did not end without reconciliation. She would flare up; and he would quench the fire but not her passion. Or he would turn as cold as stone, and she would find the spark of laughter that lay within. This deadlock was new. He was wondering how it would resolve.

When she came down the stairs, he was waiting for her. "Love," he said, reaching out. She came and threw her arms around him.

"I am sorry."

"As am I."

They laid their heads together, black and gold, softening into each other. Then they drew apart, and hand-in-hand, went in for supper. Father held the chair out for Mother and kissed the top of her head when she was seated.

Over the meal, Father asked a few questions. How often Léof went there. What the man was called. Léof answered promptly and truthfully. Then: "You should see the pictures, Papa," he said.

"Should I?" said Father.

"Yes! They're very beautiful. I think you would like them."

Father did not reply. He crumbled a piece of bread within his fingers. "I would prefer, Léof, if you did not go that way again."

"I know, Papa," Léof said. He turned his attention to his supper, and the matter was closed.

It was not a promise, not as such, and for a week or so Léof did act in accordance with his father's wishes. But he did not like to think of Hakam there all day, alone, and he felt ashamed at abandoning his friend in this way. This, surely, was not what his father would want?

On the eighth day, then, Léof forfeited scruples in favour of desire, and made his way down into the valley, past the house, and along the little path that led across the stream to the tumbledown cottage. He had brought bread and cheese as a peace offering. He tapped in warning on the door frame, and went inside.

Hakam was sitting on the ground before a small fire. Léof, looking round the bare room, saw a makeshift bed in one corner.

"Have you been sleeping here?" Léof said.

Hakam looked up. He did not reply at once, and Léof was not sure that he had heard.

"Hakam. Have you been sleeping here?"

"Yes." His voice was hoarse.

Léof sat cross-legged beside him. He offered the food, which Hakam devoured. Léof looked around. The work on the pictures had gone no further since he had last been here. What has happened?

Hakam, having finished his meal, now sat hunched over the fire, head in his hands. Léof studied him: his thin body, his greying hair, the cruel scars around his wrists. Gently, Léof touched his arm. Hakam flinched.

"Don't be scared," said Léof. "I'm your friend. Can you tell me what happened?"

"A visitor," Hakam said, at last. "I don't know who. Came and said that I must go. That I was not welcome here."

Because he was from the South. "Don't go!" said Léof. "You mustn't! It wouldn't be right!"

Hakam bent his head again. "I cannot go," he said, at last, into his hands. "There is nowhere to go and, besides…" He stared up at the pictures, half-done on the wreck of the wall. "I cannot go."

Over the next few days, Léof struggled to decide what was best to do. If he went to Father, it would be immediately obvious that he had if not broken a promise, then broken trust. And if he went to Mother, Father would be next to know. But there was danger here, of a kind he didn't quite understand, other than to grasp that it was perhaps beyond the ability of one small boy to resolve.

Still, he did his best. Each day, once again, after his tutor let him go, he slipped away up to the cottage, bringing bread or fruit or whatever he had been able to take from the kitchen without arousing suspicion. The paintings were stalled; it seemed that all that Hakam could do was sit and wait. But how would he defend his work, Léof thought. How would he defend himself?

Each night, therefore, when he was, to all intents and purposes, tucked up safe in bed, Léof would slip out through a side door, and keep watch for a while on the road, until it was so late that he was sure that nobody would come that night. And then he would go back inside, to try to sleep for an hour or two. On the fourth night of this, he came back into the house, stumbling with tiredness.

Father was sitting on the stairs, waiting for him. "Léof," he said. "Is there something you want to tell me?"

The thought of lying didn't even cross his mind. Léof fell into his father's arms. "Yes," he cried. "Oh, yes!"

As he was telling the tale, they heard, from along the valley, a hue and cry. And Father was up on his feet before Léof even knew that he was moving, and gone, out into the night.

Léof did not stay behind to wait for news. He dashed out, and took the back path down the valley.

Hakam was standing alone before the door of the cottage. There were five men in front of him, bearing sticks and stones. The leader had a knife. They moved forwards. And then – and then…

Suddenly they came out of the darkness. The broken men. They too were armed, with sticks, and they put themselves between their comrade and his assailants. There was a brief still moment, while both sides took the measure of the other. And the leader of the attackers began to laugh. "Look at them," he said. "Sick men. Lunatics. This will be easy."

It was clear to Léof that things were about to turn ugly. The attackers were the worse for drink, spoiling for a fight. But the men from the house – they were past caring. They had seen far worse than this, and they were ready to do what was necessary to protect their own. Léof rubbed his hands against his eyes. There will be blood spilled here soon, he thought…

Someone threw a stone. It missed Hakam, just, but hit the cottage, bringing down some of the weakened wall. Another stone flew, and then another, and another… The broken men surged forwards. And then there was a whistle, sharp and crisp, and a clear voice cried out: Halt!

Their orders heard, the broken men obeyed. Léof, looking up, saw the White Company, and with them – Father, lord of this land and in command. Swiftly, their visitors were contained and on their way to the lock-up.

Hakam fell to his knees. Léof rushed over to him, and held him as he wept. When he looked up again, the broken men had gone, melted back into the darkness, like ghosts, as if they had never been there. The wall was holed. Léof took Hakam inside, and helped him lie upon his bed. He looked round, fearfully.

But the paintings had survived.

"They'd come over on the ferry from one of the inns at the Harlond," Léof heard Father tell Mother the next morning. "Drunk as lords. They'd heard there was a Southron living near Emyn Arnen. They wanted to make it clear to him that he was not welcome."

"And is he?" said Mother. "Is he welcome?"

"Certainly the men from your house think so. And who am I to naysay them? Merely the lord of this land." He looked down at the tea she had made for him. "I'm sorry, my love," he said, pushing the mug towards her. "This is no use."

"Give it time," she told him, pushing the remedy back.

The door to his father's study was closed. Father never forbade entry, but he did ask for warning. So Léof tapped gently – one two three four – and turned the handle and went inside.

The room was unusually dark. Father liked things bright, airy. He would keep the windows open all year, if Mother allowed. "Love," she would say, shutting out a wild December, "you do not have to live outside any longer."

This morning, however, the windows were sealed and the curtains drawn. The air was still and stuffy. Léof peered into the gloom. "Papa?" he said quietly and then, more strongly: "Father?" His eyes adjusted to the darkness. He saw the dark shape of his father sitting on the couch, hand to brow, unmoving.

Léof knew the signs. They all did, the Prince's three children. They knew which dates brought on the sadness; they knew when to rally round and when simply to let be. They did not mind. This was part of what made him Father, but not the whole. Today was the thirteenth of March. Eighteen years earlier, the Steward's son had fallen before the gates of his city, brought low by a Southron dart and despair.

Léof stole across the room. He sat down by his father, and burrowed in. He made himself a nest from Father. There they sat, Léof safe and warm in the crook of his arm, his head against Father's chest, hearing the steady beat of his heart. Soon they were breathing together. Father's hand began to gently stroke his hair. Léof thought about how much he loved him; willed his father to know. Slowly the tenor of the room began to shift. The air became peaceful, not stale. The darkness was a warm blanket, and did not smother.

Father sighed and stirred. He buried his face in Léof's hair, and kissed him. Rising, he crossed to the window, pulling the curtains back, lifting the clasp to let in spring. It had rained a little at dawn, and the garden was green and growing. He stood for a while, breathing deeply. Then he turned to his son, and smiled. He didn't look so bad, Léof thought. By this evening he would be himself again.

"Well, Léof," Father said. "Will you introduce me to your painter?"

In the daylight, the damage was not so bad. The walls were still standing. They had survived the war, and did not intend to fall with the peace. The Prince of Ithilien, ducking his head to pass beneath the doorframe, entered the cottage and looked around the familiar space. Once upon a time, he had come this way often, with his Rangers, to take refuge here. Once upon a time, he had been glad of the roof.

On the floor sat a man, cross-legged, loading up a palette with red and black. "Father," said Léof, "this is my friend. This is Hakam."

Slowly, Hakam rose to his feet. He gave the other man a small bow, which the Prince acknowledged with a tilt of his head. "Back to work already?" the Prince said. "I admire your devotion."

"The work…" said Hakam, looking down at the palette. "It clears the mind. Steadies the hand. You enter a peaceful state, a flow…"

"Aye," said the Prince, nodding. "Archery for me. Or the harp."

"But Father," said Léof, puzzled, "you're not very good with the harp."

"I am not," agreed the Prince gravely. "That is partly why I play."

"I don't understand," said Léof.

Hakam smiled. "Humility is its own kind of mastery."

"Quite," said the Prince. He walked over to the wall to look at the pictures. He had often stared at them, over the years, but had never quite been able to discern the pattern. It was the Downfall, he realized now, with something of a shock. The death of Tar-Palantir. The rape of Tar-Míriel and the seizure of her throne. The War on Middle-earth. The surrender of Annatar to Ar-Pharazôn the Golden. The cutting down of Nimloth… Had Léof understood, the Prince wondered, glancing down at his son. Strong subject matter for a boy his age.

The last four scenes were as yet unclear. "Tell me," said the Prince, "why you chose this frieze in particular to restore."

"Proximity to the house was one reason," Hakam admitted. "I have no great wish to sleep any more beneath the sky."

"Nor I," said the Prince. "Except sometimes, when the need for peace is very strong. Then I like to see the stars."

Hakam began to paint. Today he was working on eighth panel: a high round tower with a blackened roof from which smoke would rise. This, the Prince knew, was the Temple of Morgoth at Armenelos. "This tale of yours has always interested me, sea-lord. The men who thought so well of themselves that they marched to war against the powers of the world, and brought the wrath of heaven down upon them."

"Aye, well, we were badly deceived." The Prince thought about that. "Or, rather, some of us. We did not make that mistake again."

"But we did," said Hakam. "Or, rather, some of us."

The Prince leaned back against the wall and waited for the tale. Hakam took up a fine thin brush, and contemplated his picture.

"A long way south of here," said Hakam, "in the city of my birth, there stood for a long time a great shrine. Sacred to the Powers – the Lord of Air, the Lord of Water, and the Lord of Judgement. Around the shrine there was a great library. And so it was, for many years, and we were a learned, godly people."

He dabbed the brush in black and turned to the wall. Smoke began to rise from the temple.

"Then the new god came – the Giver of Gifts – and with him came his servants, and first the shrine was removed, and then the books…"

He set down the brush, and took another, which he smeared in red.

"A great burning," he said. "Some of us tried to stop it, and we paid the price for that. First the long march in chains through the desert to the coast, and then a shorter chain and a small rocking prison on the water… We laboured at the oars for a long time, until your King freed us. And when the God of Gifts died, I walked back to my home, but there was nothing there but bones and ashes. So I turned my face north, towards the king who had released me."

"You walked back here?" said the Prince.

"I walked back here."

Blood was running in the streets of the City of the Kings. Smoke rose, as the Lords of the West burned their kinsmen in evil offering to the God of Lies.

"And here you find me." Hakam stopped to consider his work. "But what should a man do, when his world has ended? How may he live?"

The Prince pushed himself up from the wall. He came to look at the pictures again. What would those last four sections hold, he wondered. The Great Armament assailing Aman, yes, and the Wave, but then what? The landing of Elendil on the shores of Middle-earth? The building of Minas Anor? Where would this telling end? With the ruin of his ancestors or the founding of his city?

"A question I pondered for many years," said the Prince. "Since that seemed the likeliest outcome. And yet…" He held up his hands, gesturing beyond the ruin to the land within which it stood, his country, restored. "Here you find me."

"Father," said Léof, as they walked home, "I'm sorry I went against your wishes. But it was the right thing to do."

Faramir thought, I doubt it will be the last time; he said, "I understand." He drew his boy close to him, and held him tight.

Altariel, 11th-13th August 2018