Chapter II – A Son's Inheritance

He had been fighting in Nurn beyond the Ephel Dûath for so many long years that he had forgotten the peaceful sanctity of Emyn Arnen and the surrounding princedom. From this place enemies had been driven long ago. Little disturbed the hills of Ithilien in these days. The forestry sprouted freshly green now with the budding of spring, and the people were happy and content with their safe lives in their wooded realm.

Yet he was not content, nor would he ever be as long as he remained in the halls of his father. An uneasy energy existed in this place while the two of them dwelt there together. He remembered his arrival, when he had deliberately avoided his father. He did not regret having done so. He knew that by avoiding his father he had also avoided a nasty argument.

"I should not need to avoid him, as if I were a child who had done something worthy of reprimand," Elboron muttered to himself. "I am a grown man, and well beyond the years of impetuous youth! I should be able to speak my mind without fear of a lecture from my father!"

"Lord Elboron!"

The Steward's son looked up from his feathered quill with a grimace of irritation on his face. A guard dressed in full plate armor stood panting in his doorway.

"What is it?" Elboron asked. "I told Eryndil not to send any guards to me. I wish to be left alone until I return to Minas Tirith…"

"My Lord! Please!" gasped the guard, clutching his chest as he tried to catch his breath. "Come quickly! The Lord Faramir! H-He has collapsed!" Elboron turned chalk white and rose from his chair. "The healers, they…they are trying, but they…! You must come! Now! He is asking for you, my Lord!"

Elboron dashed past the guard, who followed behind him. "Where?" Elboron asked, sudden fear gripping his heart. "Where is he?"

"The gardens, my Lord!"

Elboron flew down the halls. The closer he got to the gardens, the more people were scurrying about in a frenzy, shouting to one other. He rounded the last corner and burst out beneath a stone archway. Before him lay the entryway into the gardens of Emyn Arnen. He cursed the creativity of the gardeners when he realized that a dozen ten-foot-high walls stood between him and his stricken father. Darting quickly along paths that he had navigated since childhood, he came at last to the spot where he knew his father would be—the clearing in the very center of the gardens.

Many flustered healers gathered around the figure lying inert on the warm stone.

"My…my son… Find him… I must—"

"My Lord, relax. Focus on your breathing. Please."

"Elboron…I must s-see him…"

"Father, I am here," said Elboron, shoving aside the healers to kneel at his father's side. "I am here. Elboron, your son. I have come."

"Elboron…" Faramir reached up with one hand to touch his eldest child's face with a shaking hand. His breath grew fainter, and the healers gibbered that they must attend to the Steward immediately. "You were always…your mother's child… A fighter first and last… Éowyn's darling boy…my son…"

Elboron sought words to ease the pain on his father's white face but could find none. He, unlike his father, had never been good at finding the right words to say. There was so much that needed to be said, so much damage that had been done over the years that needed to be repaired. Father and son had hardly even seen one another's faces in over six years, and now Elboron felt a tense pain in his own stomach to know that this was the last time he would ever look upon his father while Faramir still had breath in him.

"Father…" stammered Elboron. "What would you have me do? Ask it of me and I will do it."

Faramir smiled, but then withdrew the smile again as another shadow of pain flicked across his brow. "Nothing… There is nothing more that I can ask from you… Only that you forgive an old man's folly…please…"

The desperation in his father's eyes rocked Elboron to the core. He did not understand, could never understand, but he nodded instantly and took his father's hand in his own. "I forgive. I forgive you, Father."

"I-I will always…love you…Elboron…"

Elboron held back his tears as he watched his father struggling with the pain. He would never live with himself if the last image his father saw was of his son shedding tears like a woman. The healers crowded around again, insistent on giving the Steward aid, but Elboron refused to release his father's hand. Faramir waved the healers off weakly.

"Mithrandir once told me…" Faramir began, fading with each moment, "…that when a man dies…his body remains broken…but his soul departs…for another world. A world where all turns to silver glass, and when it rolls back…you see…you see white shores…and green fields…under a swift sunrise… 'And that isn't a terrible fate,' he would tell me… 'That isn't a terrible fate…'"

For the first time since childhood, Elboron could not have been prouder to have a father as brave as his.

"—boron! Elboron! Elboron!"

I gasp and sit up in bed, sweat beading into my eyes. My heart is racing as if I just experienced a nightmare. Laurelindë is at my side, asking if I need a drink, if I am all right, if it was about my father. I cannot answer her. Instead, I swing my legs over the side of the bed and stand, pacing around the room restlessly. But I can feel her eyes on me, watching, knowing—Yes, she knows.

"Elboron, it is not dawn yet," she says to me in Sindarin. "You have slept restlessly through the night. If you do not sleep well, you shall not be fit to see my father early as he requested."

"Yet he has slept no better, I think," I reply, and I can tell that she knows I am right. "He hardly spoke to me after the funeral."

"It was not out of resentment, but out of grief—"

"I know. There was a friendship there stronger than I knew. Elessar—" Abruptly I stop and drop back into my first tongue. "Elessar knew him better than I. He will always know him better than I." Knowing that there are no words to deny this, Laurelindë is silent. I dress as quickly as I can and leave our rooms.

The Citadel is near to empty. The Fountain Guards are veiled behind the blackness of the night. There is nothing for me to do at this hour but wander the Citadel of Minas Tirith, as lonely as the first twilight star. I stand alone, leaning over the stone wall surrounding the Citadel. The cold breeze whisking across the Pelennor sends a cold shiver down my spine.

Why did we never speak, my father and I? Was the fault his or mine? Or were our differences simply too great to overcome? Was his last plea for forgiveness from his heart? Was there ever really anything to forgive? I ask the questions of the stars, but they have no answer for me.

"Was it a lie?" I demand of the darkness, gazing upon the city from atop the seventh level. "Was it naught but falsehood? Shall I never know?"

"You shall know."

I turn, breathing shallowly, to face Elessar. "How, Ada?" I beg of him, clutching my black robe about me to keep out the chill air. "Tell me! Tell me how! How shall I know?"

He places a small, ebony chest into my appealing arms, his aged hand lingering for a moment on the lid.

"Elboron, there are many secrets in this world that are only secrets because of one person's will. There are many secrets that should not be kept secret. But the sanctity of a man's heart is one secret that must always be kept by its guardian. The soul is not a thing with which men may trifle.

"Elboron, I give this to you, as you are the sole heir of that guardianship. A father's tales are kept by his sons, and of Faramir's you are the only surviving son. Even I have never dared to touch the latch of this chest, though it has caused me much grief."

"My liege…what is this?" I ask, fingering the chest with great care, as if the burden might suddenly burst into flames or disappear upon a whim.

"This chest has been in my keeping since before you were born. I found it floating down the Anduin when I was away on a hunting trip with Faramir not long after I came to my throne. As you see, it bears his initial." Elessar gestures, and I see it: a flourished F engraved in the leather binding. "When I asked him if he knew what it was, he grew pale. He would not speak to me of it. He bade me cast it off at once and let it continue its journey down to the distant Belegaer. I agreed and tossed it back in the waters; but when he was not looking, I retrieved it. From that day till now, I have kept this chest. I have waited for the day when his heir would inherit the mystery.

"I know nothing about the contents of this chest. It may contain nothing at all—naught but cobwebs and spiders after years of misuse. But it may contain the answer to your questions. Either way, it is yours to deal with now as you will."

My hands tremble as I draw the precious treasure in to my chest and begin to thank Elessar. Before I can speak, he holds up his hand.

"Remember this, Elboron—you may share any wisdom that you find within that chest with anyone you like, but I beg you remember your father's wishes. He desired no one to find this chest. Think well before you reveal to anyone—even to me—things that should not be revealed."

I pause, suddenly uncertain, but I straighten my stance and nod my head. I can see my breath in the cool spring air. The sun is just beginning to rise on the White City. I look up to see it airbrush the tip of the Tower of Ecthelion with gold, setting the sable-and-silver standard of the King to blaze with fire in the dawn. When I look down again to thank Elessar, he is already gone.

Although fear quickens my heart, I kneel to the stone pavement and lean over the curious black chest engraved with my father's initial. Why would he have hidden this, I wonder? I set shaking fingers to the latch and fumble with it to undo the mechanism. With an aged, rusted chink, the latch pops open. The cracked lid parts a tiny bit from the chest. I swallow, and—

A sound erupts from the roof of a small home several levels down. My hand freezes inches above the lid of the box as a second cock crow joins the first. The Fountain Guards are revealed—standing at their posts, motionless—by the dawning light. The very eye of Eru himself seems to peep down on me, eager to realize this long-kept secret.

I close the lid, clasp the latch, and tuck the chest under my arm where it is safe from the prying eyes of the world. My heart beats against it—longing, longing to open the chest of my inheritance. The dark secrets of my father's unspoken past could lie inches from my very breast!

"Ho, Lord Elboron!" calls one of the Guards from where he stands. "Do you need help?"

"Nay," I reply, clutching the chest harder beneath my silken robe. "Nay."

I move swiftly back towards the Tower; the doors are now flung wide, and a slow stream of servants coming in and out starts the activity for the day. They inquire politely as to my early rising, my sleep, my appetite—all little nuances that mask the real question: Have you been well, Lord Elboron, since your father's passing?

"Elessar?" I call as I step cautiously into the throne room. He is nowhere in sight, but I know that he can't have gone very far in the few seconds that I was distracted. I catch a servant by the arm, and he turns, clicks his heels, and asks what he can do.

"Do you know where the King is?" I ask him, frowning. I try to conceal the chest beneath my robe, but the chains on its latch clink together. The servant eyes me oddly, but I insist he answer.

"I have not seen him this morning, my Lord," the servant answers. "I imagine he is still in his chambers."

I thank the servant and send him on his way. I know that if the King is making himself scarce it means that he does not want to be found. I turn down a corridor and pull myself tiredly up the steps that lead to my rooms in the Tower.

Laurelindë is not in my chambers, and I am grateful. Though she is grieving for me, and I know that she is only trying to help me, I just need time. Barahir has not come to see me; we have not spoken since the funeral. He is dealing with his own grief, and I am trying to give him his space to handle his feelings like a man.

So there is no one here but myself. No one to steal the secrets.

Before I can stop to think, before I can even question myself, I pull the chest from under my arm, set it on my desk, and flip the latch. The lid bearing the initial F swings up, and I lean over to peer into the shadowy realm of the chest…

Ada

(Father – in this case, Father-in-Law)