Disclaimer: Denethor and The Lord of the Rings belong to J. R. R. Tolkien. This is a work of fanfiction; no profit is being made.
The Lady of the Tower, the Lady of the Sea
Denethor
In the evenings, when the dim, slanting light of the setting sun fills the room with ashes, I can often see a shade of her dark tresses, in the black pools beyond the curtains, in a shaded corner, in a blink of an eye. For a fleeting moment I fancy I can feel her breath, yet it is just the breeze, the evening breeze coming from the gardens below. I stand up, determined to close the windows and put an end to such foolish fantasies - and in doing so I catch a glimpse of her hair, billowing like seaweed in the shadows. I draw the curtains.
Night should bring oblivion. And if sleep eludes me, there is still the parchment and the quill, orders to be issued and decisions to be made, the black ink spreading over the sheets like an advancing army, as the night wanes and hours drift by. It is the cold hour before dawn that I fear. The blue, motionless twilight that brings unwanted memories, exhaustion, and birdsong like an unstoppable wave sweeping over the land.
She used to love this moment.
"It is as if the whole of Arda held her breath," she would clasp her hands over her heart, in an innocent gesture of reverence.
I never realized she might have held her chest in pain.
And though I know it is folly, I still wait to hear her step in the hall, the rustling of her skirts... The slight, almost customary coughing she dismissed as nothing to be bothered about.
The air is just too dry for me here, in this tower of yours...
That slight, half-hidden smile. That politician's dinner-table wit.
She would tilt her head to the side now and glare at me mockingly, all the while talking about the most inconsequential things. Brisk and delicate, like one of the sea-birds she missed so much.
I remember the last time I saw her, on a desperately short day when the Steward could finally afford to escape the chains of his City. I remember the beach where she lay in her desk-chair, huddled in blankets, where I sat at her side in a pale afternoon that was drained of colour.
"'Tis said they are the spirits of the drowned."
"I beg your pardon?"
"The seagulls," she explained. "Souls of mariners lost at sea. Even in death they cannot bear to leave her."
The silence lengthened.
I remember all the words I did not say.
I seal the letters, sign what is necessary. As I did then, I fight a sudden wish to close my eyes, just for a moment. I cannot afford distractions. And dawn breaks, sunlight floods the room. The waking City yawns in a whirlwind of voices - stonehouse and garden, street and marketplace. I stand up, stiff from the sleepless night, call for my squire and order thicker curtains. And for a moment, amid the usual sounds of a busy morning, I may hear a keen, distant wail of a wayward seagull.
I care not.
Author's Note: This is a piece I have written several years ago. I have postponed publishing it in hopes of writing a companion piece from Finduilas' point of view, but this grows less and less likely. I hope that it will please someone nevertheless. Many thanks to one of my English teachers - a native speaker who was kind enough to read this piece and remove the most egregious errors all those years ago.
In this piece I imagined consumption (tuberculosis) as the likely cause of Finduilas' death. I suppose that the warm weather and sea winds of Dol Amroth must have been very good for lung disease, hence the final scene at the beach.