Chapter 12 : Of Lingering Scents and Memories Stirred
By the end of the day, Minas Tirith was not in sight, much to Boromir's disappointment. Despite their continuing rapid pace, and the call of home urging him on barring his moment of reluctance, the White Tower was not even visible in the far distance. Neither did a convenient tavern or inn appear alongside the road when the day seemed to have dragged on interminably and all were ready for rest. Another night out under the stars it would have to be.
Boromir did not wish to repeat the events of the previous night, catching dinner in the dark and otherwise battling the setting sun to get all matters tended to. So, while the reddening sun still hovered over the hills with an expanse of sky in between, he told Laenilas of his decision.
She did not seem bothered at the prospect. "I have nothing against such accommodations," she told him. "I will have a bed beneath me tomorrow evening and afterwards, so the discomfort will not be unbearable." The endless plains had gradually given way to intermittent wooded regions and they were now passing through a stand of forest that the road divided. The shelter those trees afforded would suit her as well as the thatched or tiled roof of an inn, her blanket on a pile of boughs no worse, if not better, than a lumpy and vermin-infested mattress.
Dinner also needed little preparation. The midday meal had only seen a small portion of the food housed within their saddle bags devoured and there was enough that did not have to be cooked so Laenilas' pot remained packed on her saddle. While Boromir tended the horses and Laenilas gathered enough food for a light dinner, Myrhil collected some dry wood and started a small fire in the clearing they had chosen, about sixty paces distant from the road. The branches arched high above them and the ground was mainly dirt with some needles and leaves that made for excellent tinder. Within minutes, they were sitting around the fire, food in hand.
Laenilas seemed the most thoughtful. She watched her daughter and Boromir through half-lowered eyes so that her interest was not easily discerned. Not that they would have noticed her attention was focused on them. Their conversation had taken a martial turn, and though a soldier's widow, she took little interest in the intricacies of battles and arms training. The legends and stories recounted through the generations before her were plenty. Still, she was amused watching her daughter discuss such things as parries and charging attacks. Yet it was not what they debated that held her interest so. It was the sight of them side-by-side, engaged in discourse that alternated from good-natured scolding to harsh criticism, with Myrhil hotly defending her technique on some maneuvers and listening to advice on others in which she knew she lacked skill. On one particularly contested point, Myrhil turned her head and shook it in persistent refusal to accept his verdict on her deficiency. To regain her attention, Boromir did not raise his voice. Rather, he lowered it and continued to speak. Myrhil's curiosity gnawed at her and she turned once more toward him, ears pricked.
Laenilas fully lowered her eyes and smiled, wondering if he manipulated his soldiers in so deft a manner. She understood that Boromir was only trying to teach her daughter all that she could learn in the short time he would be able to give her instruction. When she left for Rohan, Myrhil would take that knowledge to a region where she would doubtlessly need it. Minas Tirith had thousands of defenders, nearby garrisons, regular patrols and a standing army. Rohan's forces, while no doubt formidable and organized, were largely an unknown quantity to the Captain of the Guard and Laenilas would not be surprised or insulted if he deemed them inferior to his own soldiery. She did not know herself how safe her ancestral lands were, but she told herself that it was of little consequence. Lebennin had, up until recently, seemed safe as well. She would no longer wager on anything being certain. What will happen will happen, she thought.
Isolated within their self-made military domain, Boromir and Myrhil continued their arguments. They sat together, sharing a remnant of a fallen tree that they had rolled towards the blaze, and passed a wineskin back and forth, making and defending points between swallows.
"I will say it again: you still leave yourself open too much, dangerously so," Boromir stated flatly, giving the skin to his pupil. "How did you manage to kill that orc? Was it simply luck?"
"No doubt that played a small part," Myrhil admitted. "Perhaps it was fear, but I do not wish to be terrified every time I find myself confronted by one of those beasts and rely on luck to see me through."
"And that is why you need to practice what I teach you." He bent down and took two strong limbs from the pile of kindling. "Here." He handed one to Myrhil. "Put that skin down, if you can bear to part from it."
Myrhil laughed. "It is the watered variety, as you well know. Do not make me out to be a drunkard."
Boromir gestured for her to stand up and they walked around to the other side of the fire. "We shall soon see how watered that wine is, if I can quickly defeat you with a stick rather than a sword." Raising her stick with the tip of his own, he struck the end of it to initiate the battle and began to deliver swift blows, taunting her to equal his swiftness and precision in her defensive moves.
She blocked several of his thrusts in rapid succession, but when she felt a few blows land on her upraised arm and side, she knew that she would soon lose this mock battle if she did not recover and parry. The light from the fire seemed to work with her opponent, flickering when she most needed a steady light to inflict an injury on him, yet bathing her in its glow so that he could find an opening with ease.
"Come, Myrhil, you can do better," he chided. "Faramir equaled you before he saw his fourteenth summer." The strokes of the stick continued unabated, as did his taunts.
Myrhil's response was to put every shred of her strength and attention into following the movements of his arm. Before he could deliver another blow and have it connect with her unguarded body, her stick blocked it. Her side, her shoulder, her neck, her head; all of them would have suffered injury if his attacks had not been repelled.
Their makeshift swords crossed and both put all their weight against the other. What began as part of the earnest contest to best one another descended into a half-hearted brawl with first Boromir shoving Myrhil, then Myrhil retaliating with the same. A kick to the shin, a stomp on the foot, and other childish tactics followed.
Boromir was unabashedly enjoying himself. The weight of responsibility that had pressed on him at the beginning of this journey was fast dissipating into something entirely different. Scant days ago, before they had departed from the bend of the Gilrain, the onus of leading his old friend's widow and only child across Gondor had been something that he would not have chosen to do under other circumstances, but felt obligated to carry out in this particular instance. An opinionated woman such as Laenilas and her daughter, country-educated and unworldly, would never occur to him as being desirable traveling companions.
Yet they were. Laenilas was admittedly still a trial to endure in some ways, her occasionally unleashed tongue and pointed comments, such as concerning the matter of his reticence to remove his breeches, lashing him in a manner most discomforting. But the woman was not altogether disagreeable and the journey would have been undoubtedly miserable if she had been so. In fact, he had noticed her becoming more subdued of late as they drew near to the White City and left her homeland further and further behind.
While Laenilas' change in mien was unexpected, the real surprise to Boromir lay with Myrhil. The woman had already seen twenty years come and go, but she did not possess the jaded air shared by some of the young women at the court nor exhibit the incessant prattling exhibited by others. Her seclusion in the country must explain it, he thought. Cynicism is not usually a crop on a farm, real work taking the place of idleness and bearing greater fruit than what boredom and mischief could yield. She was, by turns, gay or reserved, quiet or animated, childish or serious. Grim under her mother's needle, lying in grimy and blood-soaked clothes atop a table, she had also been pained at the simple sight of a room of empty pallets. Bent and crying over the dead body of her father, she had also crouched beside him under a tree and laughed over shared memories of childhood. Rather than simply remaining Gorhend's daughter, he had shared enough of her pleasure and pain so that she now had a name and, should she die, he would feel sorrow. Thus he would do all he could to give her the skills to prolong her life in whatever perilous circumstances she found herself. Skill in arms was more precious than gold, if one had a whit of sense.
Laenilas remained seated on an old stump that had most likely provided at least one other traveler with a welcome respite from the jouncing and swaying of the saddle or wagon. She silently watched Boromir and her daughter attack each other with sticks like children and laugh as their fight became a contest of kicks and shoves. How young they are, she thought, smiling to herself. Even while threatened to be engulfed by misery and worry, moments such as these are not out of reach.
A thought planted itself in the back of her mind about the frank and friendly ease they showed with one another and she tensed as other thoughts naturally followed. She did not wish to see Myrhil hurt yet again by a thoughtless wretch. Her hand, which had stayed itself, then wrenched the weed of thought from her mind. While thoughtless wretch was an apt description for some, it did not suit Boromir. She had no need to fear for her daughter's honor. As matters stood now, she was relieved to see Myrhil absorbed in something other than death or her imagined cowardice at fleeing responsibility.
The sword fight had ended and Myrhil leaped at her opponent, trying to grab his stick away from him. Boromir put a gentle restraining hand on her uninjured shoulder. "Enough for tonight," he said. "It is time to think about going to sleep. I will take watch, now that we are closer to Mordor."
"Do orcs travel this far regularly?" she asked, her voice betraying a slight nervousness.
"The Anduin usually keeps them from venturing this far west, with some exceptions. I had never before heard of them advancing as far as the Gilrain. I would not have believed it if my eyes had not seen it for themselves. We must be wary. I cannot risk being as lax as I was last night."
"I will take the watch after yours," she said. "You must sleep as well."
Boromir nodded and smiled gratefully. "I shall sleep light regardless," he said, "but thank you."
Myrhil took the stick from his hand, returning his smile, but said nothing.
* * *
Although it felt like scant minutes had passed since she disappeared under her blanket, Myrhil felt the unwelcome nudge of a heavy boot against her backside, signaling that it was her turn to stand guard. She fought the urge to tug her covering more tightly about her and ignore the insistent summons, but she reluctantly emerged from under her shroud. Staggering to her feet, she scrubbed at her eyes with one hand and shoved her blanket away with the other.
"It has been silent," Boromir told her, "and so very easy to be lulled to sleep. You must be alert." Judging that exhaustion was stubbornly clinging to her, he took her by the shoulders and shook her gently. "Come, Myrhil. I cannot stay awake all night. I am in sore need of some rest as well." He bent and took her sword from the ground where it had lain beside her within easy reach. "Here. Be quick and watchful. The breeze is with us tonight. Anything that approaches from the east will announce itself on the air first. Remember the smell of the orcs, Myrhil. Keep that foremost in your mind, for they shall smell no different now."
Boromir's ceaseless talk pierced her fuzzy senses, as he had intended, and she gradually woke up, taking her sword from him and buckling it around her waist. "I will not fall asleep," she promised, giving her head a vigorous shake to clear her mind further, then hissed through her teeth. Her hand strayed to her shoulder, her fingers clenching the air impotently, afraid to touch it. "That cursed wound! It shall certainly keep me awake. How many hours until daylight?"
Boromir shrugged. "No more than four. 'Tis dark yet. As soon as you feel yourself falling asleep, wake me and I will join you on watch. Put some salve on your wound and the watch will pass faster."
"Nay. I will leave it for now." Myrhil turned and cast the dying fire a regretful look as she walked past it. The embers still emitted a warmth that lingered in her cloak. As she distanced herself from the fire, the heat quickly faded and soon the cool night air replaced its comfort. Behind her, she could hear Boromir shaking out his own blanket and settling onto it with a grunt.
She paused at her saddlebag and grabbed a medium-sized leather pouch. She continued onward, walking to the same place where Boromir had spent the first part of the evening, a smooth and well-formed boulder rolled up against the trunk of a tree. The construction of the road had uncovered many such rocks and they littered the sides of the north-south route, creating places to rest for the workers and future travelers alike. Sitting on her perch, she pulled her cloak around her, but left her sword uncovered. Her hand lay in her lap, ready to grasp the hilt within a moment's alarm.
The novelty of standing guard soon wore off. This was not the first time she had spent the night outdoors, eyes and ears primed for foreign sounds and smells. She had once or twice cajoled her father into letting her accompany him or some of the other men on their watches after continuous complaints, but it was a want rarely satisfied. The responsibility was rewarding, but the actual tedium of sitting and staring into black nothingness was overwhelming. After an hour, she experienced the same boredom of the past and wondered if she would remember it in the future. While the absence of anything other than the fresh scent of unfurling foliage and the moisture of the evening dew put her mind at rest, however slightly, she did not let her guard slacken. Perhaps there was nothing but harmless creatures out in the void before her, but she could not let herself feel too secure.
When the minutes slugged by slowly, she sighed in resignation and reached down to the leather pouch that rested in the folds of her cloak. With a quick motion of her forefinger, she opened the tightly cinched neck, and the scent of old tobacco filled her nostrils. The demand to travel with few possessions forced her to leave much behind, but small items such as this were easily stowed in her bags. Should it have weighed as much as the hammer in the forge, she would still have brought it. Just the feel of the leather between her fingers reminded her of the craggy features of her dead father.
Rubbing the worn material, she inhaled the aroma wafting from the pouch, her eyes closed in silent remembrance. Her father had obtained the curious dried weed from a trader who had been in the northern reaches, far beyond the ken of the soldiers he regaled with talk of his wares. Told that it would heal all ailments and soothe a worried mind, Gorhend had bought it with low expectations, but great curiosity. His irregular habit of smoking the pungent leaf had left her with a tangible link to him. She would never smoke a puff of it, though she had his pipe as well. It was her intention to always keep it as he had left it. Perhaps it would help supplant her final memory of him. Rather than a still figure shrouded in linen, he would forever be the terse and strong man she admired and struggled with, sitting in his chair next to the fire on a winter's evening, silently watching the flames with pipe held loosely in hand and swirls of smoke curling about his head.
Myrhil felt her nose beginning to burn and, clenching the pouch tightly, she rubbed away the hurt with the back of her hand. She would not let the tears come. She had successfully kept them at bay thus far on this journey and she would not mark her arrival in Minas Tirith with reddened eyes and bleak spirit. She bent a leg and rested her forehead on her knee. The pouch was cupped in her hand and pressed against her cheek. The supple hide caressed her skin and she closed her eyes at the sensation. She remained thus for she knew not how long, so lost in her memories did she become.
An owl in a nearby tree startled her out of her reverie. Cursing herself for her inattention, she let her leg fall and straightened, sitting rigid on the rock. As she cinched the pouch closed, she heard a soft footfall approaching from her right. Fear surged within her and hammered at her senses. Her ears filled with a rush of blood as her heart quickened. The pouch disappeared inside her blouse with a deft move and her hand gripped the hilt of her sword. Trying to measure her breath, she slowly rose to her feet and began to draw the blade from the scabbard.
At the sound of scraping metal, the approaching figure spoke. "Myrhil, it is I," came Boromir's voice.
Myrhil's sword retreated with an edgy sigh. "You need not have startled me so by coming here," she said, "considering that I am the one who is on watch. Why are you not sleeping?"
"Because it would not come to me," he replied, closing the distance between them. She could not see so much as a flicker from the silver threads of his tunic. The night was as black as coal and she now doubted her ability to see anything approach. She welcomed this arrival of another pair of ears to help her.
"After being so adamant about finding rest?" she teased, returning to her seat. "After saying that you must sleep, you are now wandering about?"
Boromir reached out a hand and felt the cool surface of the boulder he had himself perched on for the first part of the evening. He inched closer and settled next to her. The rock was large enough to accommodate both of them. "I could not sleep knowing that you were out here."
"I would have stayed awake," she retorted, baldly defensive. "You need not have feared that I would be a poor sentry." The lost time she had spent mesmerized by the small pouch, she told herself, had not been long at all, although she had no firm idea of how much time had passed.
"'Tis not that," he said quietly. A silence ensued and Myrhil sensed that he was about to say more, but his tone changed abruptly. "I retrieved this from your mother's pack. The salve you have been using on your wound." Myrhil heard the lid make a tinny sound as it was popped off the neck of the small jar.
"I am grateful," she said. "Though I had managed to ignore it, it would have made its presence known within a short time." The abominable itching returned, now that her mind had been turned to it. She reached out a hand and found his in the darkness. "Give it to me."
She had nearly taken the jar of scented balm from his hand when suddenly it was once again secure in his grip, as though he had had a change a heart about relinquishing it. She was about to tell him that withholding it from her was not in the least amusing when he spoke. As he did, Myrhil felt the irritation in her shoulder temporarily subside, replaced by another feeling all too familiar for she had experienced it before, and not too long ago with a handsome herdsman.
"Let me." Boromir's voice, though quiet, pierced her with its overt plea, but carried with it a firmness that she did not wish to oppose for a number of reasons. He was her lord, her father's boon friend, her protector and guide on this journey, a man she was admiring and liking more with every passing day. She did not know which of these fleeting thoughts was the cause of the sensations that were growing ever insistent, quickly robbing her of reasoned thinking. Should I wait much longer, she thought, I shall no longer care.
Boromir waited, wondering what would be the next sound to reach his ears. Chilly silence? A horrified cry? Or, and this is what he hoped for, a sound of welcome?
As the seconds lengthened, Boromir feared that he had misstepped. Perhaps I should have waited for the journey to end, he told himself. If I had, matters need never have come to this. I am not thinking clearly. The fatigue from constant travel and the close company we must keep have affected my mind and clouded my judgment.
His watch, coming on the heels of their tactical conversation and swordfight, had left him utterly alone with his thoughts. Though he did not neglect his customary watch routine of pondering what future precautions The White City might need to survive direct assault, mulling the problems of provisions for Gondor's entire army, and, lately, which men would be suitable for the herding life of the plains, he had realized his mind partly lingered still on his young companion. Their horseplay had reminded him of good-natured contests between himself and Faramir. In some respects, she was like a memory from the past, put in front of him in the present and offering a brief foray into the seemingly distant time of stick fights, running wildly through the palace, skulking about in the shadows and lying in wait for imaginary enemies. But at the same time, as they had pushed against one another in a test of strength, he had felt her resolve, her tensed muscles, and the undeniably feminine curves and softness that covered them. She was neither fragile nor afraid, yet neither distastefully forceful. He wished to have her close to him again, to see if these impressions were invoked again by her nearness. The urge to put it to the test worried at him, nagged him to forge ahead and take her in his arms, but he told himself he would not act upon it. He had already made more apparent than he thought wise, but the prospect of remaining wrapped in his blanket when such an unsettled matter still lingered in his mind had seemed ludicrous.
His doubts were brought to an end when a faint sigh disrupted the stillness that had enveloped them. Only a sigh. No words indicating yea or nay, but the sound, if he were pressed to describe it as an image, of a gently beckoning hand.
He soon felt that hand. Not a wispy phantom before his eyes, but real and solid. Myrhil's roughened hand had not left his since asking for the salve and now her callused fingertips ran over the back of his, over his knuckles and along his fingers, following the path leading to the object of her search. There was a slight ripple of scent in the air as the contents of the jar were disturbed. Her fingers now held a bit of the salve and her other hand undid the clasp of her cloak. A shrug of her shoulders made it fall about her on the rock. Proceeding to the laces at the throat of her blouse, she loosened them and bared her injured shoulder to the night air.
Boromir could only hear the sound of garments falling away and being shifted, but like the earlier sigh, the soft noises issuing from Myrhil's movements created a picture in the darkness. Still, he knew not what to expect to feel under his hand when Myrhil caught him by the wrist and rubbed the balm from her fingers onto his. His wrist still firmly in her grasp, she guided his hand to her shoulder and finally surrendered her hold once the warm flesh trembled under his touch.
"Please, Boromir," she whispered. "It is aching."
He did not hesitate. He ran his fingers over the reddened skin, the bumps of the stitches and coarse patches of dried blood and healing abrasions seeming like the sharpest of sensations as they flowed through his fingertips. Myrhil slid closer, leaning towards him as the powers of the ointment began to work, easing the irritation, pain and tension.
Slowly he worked the salve into her wound. Occasionally he would let his fingers run up the side of her neck and down her throat, inducing another sigh to float on the air between them. Boromir could feel himself being surrounded by the intense heat Myrhil exuded, his own mounting ardor and the sweet scent of the ointment adding to the sense of intoxication. He knew he was being foolish, courting disaster by acting thus with his friend's daughter, but he did not let those thoughts take hold of him long. He was here in the wild, thrown together with a woman who had in fact been offered to him as a bride; a woman attractive not in the manner desirable in brothels or the court, but of a different kind. Since he had known so few women outside of either sphere, he was hard pressed to describe exactly what he felt.
While sweet words from a skilled throat alone could sometimes arouse him, a contest or fight seldom failed to inflame his blood, and the small competition with Myrhil had done just that. If what he did now was a transgression that bore consequences, then at this moment he would gladly face them should they come. It had seemed like such a long time since he had lain in a woman's embrace, enjoyed that heady scent unique to lovemaking. The soldier's life in the field was the illness that moments such as these could temporarily relieve.
His fingers completed another path down her throat, but instead of returning to her shoulder, they lightly brushed along her collarbone and he let his palm slide further down until it covered her breast. He felt Myrhil arch into his hand and he bent his head to place a series of kisses along her uninjured shoulder and across her upper chest. Running his lips up her throat, he stopped the slow and torturous route at her mouth and began to kiss her firmly, needfully.
Boromir remembered Belaród's heated denial of ever touching his master's daughter and told himself he had never believed the young man's protestations. It would have been too much to expect Myrhil, despite her stern rearing, to have forgone this pleasure of life. Though the thought of it pained him on Gorhend's behalf, he was pleased on his own. She was returning his kiss beautifully.
Myrhil was feeling herself slowly and insistently swept up in the crushing embrace being wrapped around her, although no arms encircled her. She felt it in the air, growing ever closer and saturated with the excitement and strange magic that two people thus together created. She closed her eyes and gave herself over to the kiss.
How long had it been since she had last lain with Belaród? Months? It certainly seemed so. Where had they last coupled? The hayloft? She thought her nostrils detected the scent of fodder, horses and well-oiled tack. No, it was not that. That had not been the place. Trees, grass, and earth. Her memories inhaled deeply. The plains. Absconding from home and barn with a couple blankets to spend a few stolen hours out in Nature's forgiving and understanding embrace. Belaród above her, the light of the moon trained on his face and showing him to her, letting her see his tender expression as he whispered to her. The pale beam making his clean-shaven jaw almost shimmer in its cool bath. So beautiful, so smooth. . . Her fingers ached to feel it, her palm to caress the perfection the moon had bestowed upon him. She raised her hand and reached out in the darkness.
Rough. Prickly. A beard.
Boromir.
Her fingers curled against her palm, her knuckles dragging slowly against his cheek as they retracted defensively, crushed.
Boromir felt the odd gesture, but continued the kiss. Her lips were soft beneath his. Soft, unlike the hard ground he had slept on for two nights, unlike the harsh clash of swords or the firm discipline meted out to his soldiers. But when she no longer responded, he parted from her and brought his own hand up to her cheek. He caressed the flesh with his thumb and paused when he felt wetness beneath his hand. "Myrhil?" he asked, concerned. "Are you crying?"
A nod was his answer.
"Why?" he continued. "I thought you were agreeable. When I touched you. . ."
"I am agreeable," she whispered. "I weep because the past cannot disappear, even if I want it to."
"Belaród?" Another nod under his hand. He sighed softly and brushed her hair away from her face, his touch gentle, as it always had been. His fingers ran down her neck and over her shoulders until he felt the cloth of her shirt. Taking hold of it, he drew it up around her, arranging it as best he could in the darkness. He was about to take hold of the laces when Myrhil's hands settled over his.
"Boromir, I am sorry."
He shook his head. "I was wrong to do it. I simply--" He sighed. "Perhaps it is best that you will be going immediately to Rohan. May you find forgetfulness there." He pulled the laces together and tied them in a loose bow.
"Forgetfulness?" she repeated. "Find another man, you mean."
Boromir took her cloak and settled it about her shoulders. "You will not forget Belaród entirely, or at all. Do not fool yourself that you will. But the pain will diminish." He was silent for a long time, but when he began to speak again, his voice was very soft, but tense. "For many months after my mother died, I could not bear to look upon a mother laughing with her child or wrapping her arms about them. The pain of it was like a hot iron in my heart. When female kin or the occasional overcome servant thought to ease my suffering with an embrace or caress, I could not stand their touch. They were not her. But the disgust, the fear I felt, faded away."
Myrhil listened to Boromir's pained recounting of this childhood sorrow. She was unsure of what she could, or should, say. Words gentle and subtle were infrequent visitors to her lips, a trait acquired from her father. "I thought I accepted that as we buried him," Myrhil finally replied, sadly. "I told myself I would not dwell upon it."
He fastened the clasp and rested his hands on her shoulders briefly, contemplating something in the darkness. Then he completely withdrew from her. His presence beside her disappeared, with cool air once again surrounding.
"Are you going to leave me here with these tormenting thoughts, Boromir?" she asked. "This night chill is an unwelcome returning visitor."
"You want me to stay?" he replied, guardedly. "I do not wish to pain you."
"The pleasure I get from your company far outweighs that. Please."
Myrhil soon felt Boromir's solid form once again beside her. They said nothing. She heard him secure the lid onto the jar, but she did not know what he did with it after that. She did not care. Her shoulder was now awash in the soothing comfort the salve provided. Along her throat, the skin still tingled from where Boromir's lips and fingers had traveled. She could not deny that his touch was as pleasant as his company. If she were soon to part from him, then she would relish these last moments beside him, whether arguing about fighting tactics or sitting silently like now.
Impulsively, she reached out and laid her hand on his arm, continuing along the length of it until she came to his hand. Her fingers slid through his and she squeezed gently. "I shall miss you, Boromir."
There was only a moment's silence before a simple reply.
"And I you."
To be continued. . .
By the end of the day, Minas Tirith was not in sight, much to Boromir's disappointment. Despite their continuing rapid pace, and the call of home urging him on barring his moment of reluctance, the White Tower was not even visible in the far distance. Neither did a convenient tavern or inn appear alongside the road when the day seemed to have dragged on interminably and all were ready for rest. Another night out under the stars it would have to be.
Boromir did not wish to repeat the events of the previous night, catching dinner in the dark and otherwise battling the setting sun to get all matters tended to. So, while the reddening sun still hovered over the hills with an expanse of sky in between, he told Laenilas of his decision.
She did not seem bothered at the prospect. "I have nothing against such accommodations," she told him. "I will have a bed beneath me tomorrow evening and afterwards, so the discomfort will not be unbearable." The endless plains had gradually given way to intermittent wooded regions and they were now passing through a stand of forest that the road divided. The shelter those trees afforded would suit her as well as the thatched or tiled roof of an inn, her blanket on a pile of boughs no worse, if not better, than a lumpy and vermin-infested mattress.
Dinner also needed little preparation. The midday meal had only seen a small portion of the food housed within their saddle bags devoured and there was enough that did not have to be cooked so Laenilas' pot remained packed on her saddle. While Boromir tended the horses and Laenilas gathered enough food for a light dinner, Myrhil collected some dry wood and started a small fire in the clearing they had chosen, about sixty paces distant from the road. The branches arched high above them and the ground was mainly dirt with some needles and leaves that made for excellent tinder. Within minutes, they were sitting around the fire, food in hand.
Laenilas seemed the most thoughtful. She watched her daughter and Boromir through half-lowered eyes so that her interest was not easily discerned. Not that they would have noticed her attention was focused on them. Their conversation had taken a martial turn, and though a soldier's widow, she took little interest in the intricacies of battles and arms training. The legends and stories recounted through the generations before her were plenty. Still, she was amused watching her daughter discuss such things as parries and charging attacks. Yet it was not what they debated that held her interest so. It was the sight of them side-by-side, engaged in discourse that alternated from good-natured scolding to harsh criticism, with Myrhil hotly defending her technique on some maneuvers and listening to advice on others in which she knew she lacked skill. On one particularly contested point, Myrhil turned her head and shook it in persistent refusal to accept his verdict on her deficiency. To regain her attention, Boromir did not raise his voice. Rather, he lowered it and continued to speak. Myrhil's curiosity gnawed at her and she turned once more toward him, ears pricked.
Laenilas fully lowered her eyes and smiled, wondering if he manipulated his soldiers in so deft a manner. She understood that Boromir was only trying to teach her daughter all that she could learn in the short time he would be able to give her instruction. When she left for Rohan, Myrhil would take that knowledge to a region where she would doubtlessly need it. Minas Tirith had thousands of defenders, nearby garrisons, regular patrols and a standing army. Rohan's forces, while no doubt formidable and organized, were largely an unknown quantity to the Captain of the Guard and Laenilas would not be surprised or insulted if he deemed them inferior to his own soldiery. She did not know herself how safe her ancestral lands were, but she told herself that it was of little consequence. Lebennin had, up until recently, seemed safe as well. She would no longer wager on anything being certain. What will happen will happen, she thought.
Isolated within their self-made military domain, Boromir and Myrhil continued their arguments. They sat together, sharing a remnant of a fallen tree that they had rolled towards the blaze, and passed a wineskin back and forth, making and defending points between swallows.
"I will say it again: you still leave yourself open too much, dangerously so," Boromir stated flatly, giving the skin to his pupil. "How did you manage to kill that orc? Was it simply luck?"
"No doubt that played a small part," Myrhil admitted. "Perhaps it was fear, but I do not wish to be terrified every time I find myself confronted by one of those beasts and rely on luck to see me through."
"And that is why you need to practice what I teach you." He bent down and took two strong limbs from the pile of kindling. "Here." He handed one to Myrhil. "Put that skin down, if you can bear to part from it."
Myrhil laughed. "It is the watered variety, as you well know. Do not make me out to be a drunkard."
Boromir gestured for her to stand up and they walked around to the other side of the fire. "We shall soon see how watered that wine is, if I can quickly defeat you with a stick rather than a sword." Raising her stick with the tip of his own, he struck the end of it to initiate the battle and began to deliver swift blows, taunting her to equal his swiftness and precision in her defensive moves.
She blocked several of his thrusts in rapid succession, but when she felt a few blows land on her upraised arm and side, she knew that she would soon lose this mock battle if she did not recover and parry. The light from the fire seemed to work with her opponent, flickering when she most needed a steady light to inflict an injury on him, yet bathing her in its glow so that he could find an opening with ease.
"Come, Myrhil, you can do better," he chided. "Faramir equaled you before he saw his fourteenth summer." The strokes of the stick continued unabated, as did his taunts.
Myrhil's response was to put every shred of her strength and attention into following the movements of his arm. Before he could deliver another blow and have it connect with her unguarded body, her stick blocked it. Her side, her shoulder, her neck, her head; all of them would have suffered injury if his attacks had not been repelled.
Their makeshift swords crossed and both put all their weight against the other. What began as part of the earnest contest to best one another descended into a half-hearted brawl with first Boromir shoving Myrhil, then Myrhil retaliating with the same. A kick to the shin, a stomp on the foot, and other childish tactics followed.
Boromir was unabashedly enjoying himself. The weight of responsibility that had pressed on him at the beginning of this journey was fast dissipating into something entirely different. Scant days ago, before they had departed from the bend of the Gilrain, the onus of leading his old friend's widow and only child across Gondor had been something that he would not have chosen to do under other circumstances, but felt obligated to carry out in this particular instance. An opinionated woman such as Laenilas and her daughter, country-educated and unworldly, would never occur to him as being desirable traveling companions.
Yet they were. Laenilas was admittedly still a trial to endure in some ways, her occasionally unleashed tongue and pointed comments, such as concerning the matter of his reticence to remove his breeches, lashing him in a manner most discomforting. But the woman was not altogether disagreeable and the journey would have been undoubtedly miserable if she had been so. In fact, he had noticed her becoming more subdued of late as they drew near to the White City and left her homeland further and further behind.
While Laenilas' change in mien was unexpected, the real surprise to Boromir lay with Myrhil. The woman had already seen twenty years come and go, but she did not possess the jaded air shared by some of the young women at the court nor exhibit the incessant prattling exhibited by others. Her seclusion in the country must explain it, he thought. Cynicism is not usually a crop on a farm, real work taking the place of idleness and bearing greater fruit than what boredom and mischief could yield. She was, by turns, gay or reserved, quiet or animated, childish or serious. Grim under her mother's needle, lying in grimy and blood-soaked clothes atop a table, she had also been pained at the simple sight of a room of empty pallets. Bent and crying over the dead body of her father, she had also crouched beside him under a tree and laughed over shared memories of childhood. Rather than simply remaining Gorhend's daughter, he had shared enough of her pleasure and pain so that she now had a name and, should she die, he would feel sorrow. Thus he would do all he could to give her the skills to prolong her life in whatever perilous circumstances she found herself. Skill in arms was more precious than gold, if one had a whit of sense.
Laenilas remained seated on an old stump that had most likely provided at least one other traveler with a welcome respite from the jouncing and swaying of the saddle or wagon. She silently watched Boromir and her daughter attack each other with sticks like children and laugh as their fight became a contest of kicks and shoves. How young they are, she thought, smiling to herself. Even while threatened to be engulfed by misery and worry, moments such as these are not out of reach.
A thought planted itself in the back of her mind about the frank and friendly ease they showed with one another and she tensed as other thoughts naturally followed. She did not wish to see Myrhil hurt yet again by a thoughtless wretch. Her hand, which had stayed itself, then wrenched the weed of thought from her mind. While thoughtless wretch was an apt description for some, it did not suit Boromir. She had no need to fear for her daughter's honor. As matters stood now, she was relieved to see Myrhil absorbed in something other than death or her imagined cowardice at fleeing responsibility.
The sword fight had ended and Myrhil leaped at her opponent, trying to grab his stick away from him. Boromir put a gentle restraining hand on her uninjured shoulder. "Enough for tonight," he said. "It is time to think about going to sleep. I will take watch, now that we are closer to Mordor."
"Do orcs travel this far regularly?" she asked, her voice betraying a slight nervousness.
"The Anduin usually keeps them from venturing this far west, with some exceptions. I had never before heard of them advancing as far as the Gilrain. I would not have believed it if my eyes had not seen it for themselves. We must be wary. I cannot risk being as lax as I was last night."
"I will take the watch after yours," she said. "You must sleep as well."
Boromir nodded and smiled gratefully. "I shall sleep light regardless," he said, "but thank you."
Myrhil took the stick from his hand, returning his smile, but said nothing.
* * *
Although it felt like scant minutes had passed since she disappeared under her blanket, Myrhil felt the unwelcome nudge of a heavy boot against her backside, signaling that it was her turn to stand guard. She fought the urge to tug her covering more tightly about her and ignore the insistent summons, but she reluctantly emerged from under her shroud. Staggering to her feet, she scrubbed at her eyes with one hand and shoved her blanket away with the other.
"It has been silent," Boromir told her, "and so very easy to be lulled to sleep. You must be alert." Judging that exhaustion was stubbornly clinging to her, he took her by the shoulders and shook her gently. "Come, Myrhil. I cannot stay awake all night. I am in sore need of some rest as well." He bent and took her sword from the ground where it had lain beside her within easy reach. "Here. Be quick and watchful. The breeze is with us tonight. Anything that approaches from the east will announce itself on the air first. Remember the smell of the orcs, Myrhil. Keep that foremost in your mind, for they shall smell no different now."
Boromir's ceaseless talk pierced her fuzzy senses, as he had intended, and she gradually woke up, taking her sword from him and buckling it around her waist. "I will not fall asleep," she promised, giving her head a vigorous shake to clear her mind further, then hissed through her teeth. Her hand strayed to her shoulder, her fingers clenching the air impotently, afraid to touch it. "That cursed wound! It shall certainly keep me awake. How many hours until daylight?"
Boromir shrugged. "No more than four. 'Tis dark yet. As soon as you feel yourself falling asleep, wake me and I will join you on watch. Put some salve on your wound and the watch will pass faster."
"Nay. I will leave it for now." Myrhil turned and cast the dying fire a regretful look as she walked past it. The embers still emitted a warmth that lingered in her cloak. As she distanced herself from the fire, the heat quickly faded and soon the cool night air replaced its comfort. Behind her, she could hear Boromir shaking out his own blanket and settling onto it with a grunt.
She paused at her saddlebag and grabbed a medium-sized leather pouch. She continued onward, walking to the same place where Boromir had spent the first part of the evening, a smooth and well-formed boulder rolled up against the trunk of a tree. The construction of the road had uncovered many such rocks and they littered the sides of the north-south route, creating places to rest for the workers and future travelers alike. Sitting on her perch, she pulled her cloak around her, but left her sword uncovered. Her hand lay in her lap, ready to grasp the hilt within a moment's alarm.
The novelty of standing guard soon wore off. This was not the first time she had spent the night outdoors, eyes and ears primed for foreign sounds and smells. She had once or twice cajoled her father into letting her accompany him or some of the other men on their watches after continuous complaints, but it was a want rarely satisfied. The responsibility was rewarding, but the actual tedium of sitting and staring into black nothingness was overwhelming. After an hour, she experienced the same boredom of the past and wondered if she would remember it in the future. While the absence of anything other than the fresh scent of unfurling foliage and the moisture of the evening dew put her mind at rest, however slightly, she did not let her guard slacken. Perhaps there was nothing but harmless creatures out in the void before her, but she could not let herself feel too secure.
When the minutes slugged by slowly, she sighed in resignation and reached down to the leather pouch that rested in the folds of her cloak. With a quick motion of her forefinger, she opened the tightly cinched neck, and the scent of old tobacco filled her nostrils. The demand to travel with few possessions forced her to leave much behind, but small items such as this were easily stowed in her bags. Should it have weighed as much as the hammer in the forge, she would still have brought it. Just the feel of the leather between her fingers reminded her of the craggy features of her dead father.
Rubbing the worn material, she inhaled the aroma wafting from the pouch, her eyes closed in silent remembrance. Her father had obtained the curious dried weed from a trader who had been in the northern reaches, far beyond the ken of the soldiers he regaled with talk of his wares. Told that it would heal all ailments and soothe a worried mind, Gorhend had bought it with low expectations, but great curiosity. His irregular habit of smoking the pungent leaf had left her with a tangible link to him. She would never smoke a puff of it, though she had his pipe as well. It was her intention to always keep it as he had left it. Perhaps it would help supplant her final memory of him. Rather than a still figure shrouded in linen, he would forever be the terse and strong man she admired and struggled with, sitting in his chair next to the fire on a winter's evening, silently watching the flames with pipe held loosely in hand and swirls of smoke curling about his head.
Myrhil felt her nose beginning to burn and, clenching the pouch tightly, she rubbed away the hurt with the back of her hand. She would not let the tears come. She had successfully kept them at bay thus far on this journey and she would not mark her arrival in Minas Tirith with reddened eyes and bleak spirit. She bent a leg and rested her forehead on her knee. The pouch was cupped in her hand and pressed against her cheek. The supple hide caressed her skin and she closed her eyes at the sensation. She remained thus for she knew not how long, so lost in her memories did she become.
An owl in a nearby tree startled her out of her reverie. Cursing herself for her inattention, she let her leg fall and straightened, sitting rigid on the rock. As she cinched the pouch closed, she heard a soft footfall approaching from her right. Fear surged within her and hammered at her senses. Her ears filled with a rush of blood as her heart quickened. The pouch disappeared inside her blouse with a deft move and her hand gripped the hilt of her sword. Trying to measure her breath, she slowly rose to her feet and began to draw the blade from the scabbard.
At the sound of scraping metal, the approaching figure spoke. "Myrhil, it is I," came Boromir's voice.
Myrhil's sword retreated with an edgy sigh. "You need not have startled me so by coming here," she said, "considering that I am the one who is on watch. Why are you not sleeping?"
"Because it would not come to me," he replied, closing the distance between them. She could not see so much as a flicker from the silver threads of his tunic. The night was as black as coal and she now doubted her ability to see anything approach. She welcomed this arrival of another pair of ears to help her.
"After being so adamant about finding rest?" she teased, returning to her seat. "After saying that you must sleep, you are now wandering about?"
Boromir reached out a hand and felt the cool surface of the boulder he had himself perched on for the first part of the evening. He inched closer and settled next to her. The rock was large enough to accommodate both of them. "I could not sleep knowing that you were out here."
"I would have stayed awake," she retorted, baldly defensive. "You need not have feared that I would be a poor sentry." The lost time she had spent mesmerized by the small pouch, she told herself, had not been long at all, although she had no firm idea of how much time had passed.
"'Tis not that," he said quietly. A silence ensued and Myrhil sensed that he was about to say more, but his tone changed abruptly. "I retrieved this from your mother's pack. The salve you have been using on your wound." Myrhil heard the lid make a tinny sound as it was popped off the neck of the small jar.
"I am grateful," she said. "Though I had managed to ignore it, it would have made its presence known within a short time." The abominable itching returned, now that her mind had been turned to it. She reached out a hand and found his in the darkness. "Give it to me."
She had nearly taken the jar of scented balm from his hand when suddenly it was once again secure in his grip, as though he had had a change a heart about relinquishing it. She was about to tell him that withholding it from her was not in the least amusing when he spoke. As he did, Myrhil felt the irritation in her shoulder temporarily subside, replaced by another feeling all too familiar for she had experienced it before, and not too long ago with a handsome herdsman.
"Let me." Boromir's voice, though quiet, pierced her with its overt plea, but carried with it a firmness that she did not wish to oppose for a number of reasons. He was her lord, her father's boon friend, her protector and guide on this journey, a man she was admiring and liking more with every passing day. She did not know which of these fleeting thoughts was the cause of the sensations that were growing ever insistent, quickly robbing her of reasoned thinking. Should I wait much longer, she thought, I shall no longer care.
Boromir waited, wondering what would be the next sound to reach his ears. Chilly silence? A horrified cry? Or, and this is what he hoped for, a sound of welcome?
As the seconds lengthened, Boromir feared that he had misstepped. Perhaps I should have waited for the journey to end, he told himself. If I had, matters need never have come to this. I am not thinking clearly. The fatigue from constant travel and the close company we must keep have affected my mind and clouded my judgment.
His watch, coming on the heels of their tactical conversation and swordfight, had left him utterly alone with his thoughts. Though he did not neglect his customary watch routine of pondering what future precautions The White City might need to survive direct assault, mulling the problems of provisions for Gondor's entire army, and, lately, which men would be suitable for the herding life of the plains, he had realized his mind partly lingered still on his young companion. Their horseplay had reminded him of good-natured contests between himself and Faramir. In some respects, she was like a memory from the past, put in front of him in the present and offering a brief foray into the seemingly distant time of stick fights, running wildly through the palace, skulking about in the shadows and lying in wait for imaginary enemies. But at the same time, as they had pushed against one another in a test of strength, he had felt her resolve, her tensed muscles, and the undeniably feminine curves and softness that covered them. She was neither fragile nor afraid, yet neither distastefully forceful. He wished to have her close to him again, to see if these impressions were invoked again by her nearness. The urge to put it to the test worried at him, nagged him to forge ahead and take her in his arms, but he told himself he would not act upon it. He had already made more apparent than he thought wise, but the prospect of remaining wrapped in his blanket when such an unsettled matter still lingered in his mind had seemed ludicrous.
His doubts were brought to an end when a faint sigh disrupted the stillness that had enveloped them. Only a sigh. No words indicating yea or nay, but the sound, if he were pressed to describe it as an image, of a gently beckoning hand.
He soon felt that hand. Not a wispy phantom before his eyes, but real and solid. Myrhil's roughened hand had not left his since asking for the salve and now her callused fingertips ran over the back of his, over his knuckles and along his fingers, following the path leading to the object of her search. There was a slight ripple of scent in the air as the contents of the jar were disturbed. Her fingers now held a bit of the salve and her other hand undid the clasp of her cloak. A shrug of her shoulders made it fall about her on the rock. Proceeding to the laces at the throat of her blouse, she loosened them and bared her injured shoulder to the night air.
Boromir could only hear the sound of garments falling away and being shifted, but like the earlier sigh, the soft noises issuing from Myrhil's movements created a picture in the darkness. Still, he knew not what to expect to feel under his hand when Myrhil caught him by the wrist and rubbed the balm from her fingers onto his. His wrist still firmly in her grasp, she guided his hand to her shoulder and finally surrendered her hold once the warm flesh trembled under his touch.
"Please, Boromir," she whispered. "It is aching."
He did not hesitate. He ran his fingers over the reddened skin, the bumps of the stitches and coarse patches of dried blood and healing abrasions seeming like the sharpest of sensations as they flowed through his fingertips. Myrhil slid closer, leaning towards him as the powers of the ointment began to work, easing the irritation, pain and tension.
Slowly he worked the salve into her wound. Occasionally he would let his fingers run up the side of her neck and down her throat, inducing another sigh to float on the air between them. Boromir could feel himself being surrounded by the intense heat Myrhil exuded, his own mounting ardor and the sweet scent of the ointment adding to the sense of intoxication. He knew he was being foolish, courting disaster by acting thus with his friend's daughter, but he did not let those thoughts take hold of him long. He was here in the wild, thrown together with a woman who had in fact been offered to him as a bride; a woman attractive not in the manner desirable in brothels or the court, but of a different kind. Since he had known so few women outside of either sphere, he was hard pressed to describe exactly what he felt.
While sweet words from a skilled throat alone could sometimes arouse him, a contest or fight seldom failed to inflame his blood, and the small competition with Myrhil had done just that. If what he did now was a transgression that bore consequences, then at this moment he would gladly face them should they come. It had seemed like such a long time since he had lain in a woman's embrace, enjoyed that heady scent unique to lovemaking. The soldier's life in the field was the illness that moments such as these could temporarily relieve.
His fingers completed another path down her throat, but instead of returning to her shoulder, they lightly brushed along her collarbone and he let his palm slide further down until it covered her breast. He felt Myrhil arch into his hand and he bent his head to place a series of kisses along her uninjured shoulder and across her upper chest. Running his lips up her throat, he stopped the slow and torturous route at her mouth and began to kiss her firmly, needfully.
Boromir remembered Belaród's heated denial of ever touching his master's daughter and told himself he had never believed the young man's protestations. It would have been too much to expect Myrhil, despite her stern rearing, to have forgone this pleasure of life. Though the thought of it pained him on Gorhend's behalf, he was pleased on his own. She was returning his kiss beautifully.
Myrhil was feeling herself slowly and insistently swept up in the crushing embrace being wrapped around her, although no arms encircled her. She felt it in the air, growing ever closer and saturated with the excitement and strange magic that two people thus together created. She closed her eyes and gave herself over to the kiss.
How long had it been since she had last lain with Belaród? Months? It certainly seemed so. Where had they last coupled? The hayloft? She thought her nostrils detected the scent of fodder, horses and well-oiled tack. No, it was not that. That had not been the place. Trees, grass, and earth. Her memories inhaled deeply. The plains. Absconding from home and barn with a couple blankets to spend a few stolen hours out in Nature's forgiving and understanding embrace. Belaród above her, the light of the moon trained on his face and showing him to her, letting her see his tender expression as he whispered to her. The pale beam making his clean-shaven jaw almost shimmer in its cool bath. So beautiful, so smooth. . . Her fingers ached to feel it, her palm to caress the perfection the moon had bestowed upon him. She raised her hand and reached out in the darkness.
Rough. Prickly. A beard.
Boromir.
Her fingers curled against her palm, her knuckles dragging slowly against his cheek as they retracted defensively, crushed.
Boromir felt the odd gesture, but continued the kiss. Her lips were soft beneath his. Soft, unlike the hard ground he had slept on for two nights, unlike the harsh clash of swords or the firm discipline meted out to his soldiers. But when she no longer responded, he parted from her and brought his own hand up to her cheek. He caressed the flesh with his thumb and paused when he felt wetness beneath his hand. "Myrhil?" he asked, concerned. "Are you crying?"
A nod was his answer.
"Why?" he continued. "I thought you were agreeable. When I touched you. . ."
"I am agreeable," she whispered. "I weep because the past cannot disappear, even if I want it to."
"Belaród?" Another nod under his hand. He sighed softly and brushed her hair away from her face, his touch gentle, as it always had been. His fingers ran down her neck and over her shoulders until he felt the cloth of her shirt. Taking hold of it, he drew it up around her, arranging it as best he could in the darkness. He was about to take hold of the laces when Myrhil's hands settled over his.
"Boromir, I am sorry."
He shook his head. "I was wrong to do it. I simply--" He sighed. "Perhaps it is best that you will be going immediately to Rohan. May you find forgetfulness there." He pulled the laces together and tied them in a loose bow.
"Forgetfulness?" she repeated. "Find another man, you mean."
Boromir took her cloak and settled it about her shoulders. "You will not forget Belaród entirely, or at all. Do not fool yourself that you will. But the pain will diminish." He was silent for a long time, but when he began to speak again, his voice was very soft, but tense. "For many months after my mother died, I could not bear to look upon a mother laughing with her child or wrapping her arms about them. The pain of it was like a hot iron in my heart. When female kin or the occasional overcome servant thought to ease my suffering with an embrace or caress, I could not stand their touch. They were not her. But the disgust, the fear I felt, faded away."
Myrhil listened to Boromir's pained recounting of this childhood sorrow. She was unsure of what she could, or should, say. Words gentle and subtle were infrequent visitors to her lips, a trait acquired from her father. "I thought I accepted that as we buried him," Myrhil finally replied, sadly. "I told myself I would not dwell upon it."
He fastened the clasp and rested his hands on her shoulders briefly, contemplating something in the darkness. Then he completely withdrew from her. His presence beside her disappeared, with cool air once again surrounding.
"Are you going to leave me here with these tormenting thoughts, Boromir?" she asked. "This night chill is an unwelcome returning visitor."
"You want me to stay?" he replied, guardedly. "I do not wish to pain you."
"The pleasure I get from your company far outweighs that. Please."
Myrhil soon felt Boromir's solid form once again beside her. They said nothing. She heard him secure the lid onto the jar, but she did not know what he did with it after that. She did not care. Her shoulder was now awash in the soothing comfort the salve provided. Along her throat, the skin still tingled from where Boromir's lips and fingers had traveled. She could not deny that his touch was as pleasant as his company. If she were soon to part from him, then she would relish these last moments beside him, whether arguing about fighting tactics or sitting silently like now.
Impulsively, she reached out and laid her hand on his arm, continuing along the length of it until she came to his hand. Her fingers slid through his and she squeezed gently. "I shall miss you, Boromir."
There was only a moment's silence before a simple reply.
"And I you."
To be continued. . .
