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Chapter 13.
Step back.
He was waking up slowly, coming back to the reality with contented laziness, the origin of which was unclear even for him. It echoed in him like an after-taste of a kiss, remembered not by mind, but by body.
He saw no dreams. A good sign, because the previous nights had not been as merciful on him, making him toss and turn and grit his teeth, haunted by gloomy, acrid pictures.
This night he fell into sleep like into a black pit. No visions were there, no sounds, no anxieties. Only at dawn, when the pink light of the morning touched his closed eyes and disturbed his slumber, it seemed to him that he heard a quiet, soothing voice and felt thin fingers, stroking his hair gently.
Boromir pondered over it, preparing himself for coming down - not because it bothered him. Quite on the contrary. He did experience certain dissatisfaction, but that of a pleasant kind, akin to anticipation.
It was rather late already, late enough for the guests to be on their way to their homes. A thought was indifferent – a mere statement of a fact.
Just as he had believed. He simply had to live through yesterday to calm down.
Instead of looking for a clean garment, he reached out for the shirt he had taken off the previous evening. It slipped on with ease, evoking a light shiver in him. Boromir flinched, drawing in his abdomen, as his body reacted to the touch of the fabric with an unusual sensitivity.
After a captious examination he chose his best belt, purchased from a stray merchant some years ago and forgotten almost the same day due to its pretentious luxury. Boromir strapped his waist tighter and straightened his shoulders. There still was some use in those contests – his muscles woke up, obtaining their former obedience.
He had no need of a dagger, but took one of those, knights wore as a mere proof of their high office. A sumptuously ornate toy, which couldn't even bruise, let alone cut anyone.
Suddenly conscious to what he was doing, the Gondorian tore the trinket off his belt and threw it away, scolding at himself for the silly behaviour. That sprucing up was proper only for a green youth, so why was he making one of himself?
He shouldn't have asked it. He knew the reason. And it was more laughable than all his perking.
He wanted to show he was still able to stand on his feet, and to do it decently. Not to everyone – to one single person, who'd seen him so disgracefully broken.
Yesterday he had said a lot more than he could expect from himself. But now it was already too late to regret about it.
The girl surprised him. A smug smile crept onto his lips involuntarily as he remembered with what heat she had been praising him and how matter-of-factly she had said that simple "because of what you are". Then he was too sore to think about it as of a compliment from a woman. Though he had to admit that now it was as hard. There was not a sign of coquetry or admiration in her voice – nothing of what he had used to hear from the others. She obviously had in mind anything except the intention to flatter him. It commanded a certain respect… and pricked some small-minded streak of conceit in Boromir.
He had hastened to judge her, as he was probably hastening now. She conquered him with her non-compromising, non-faltering belief in his impeccability and her eagerness to make him justify himself at all costs. He didn't understand it.
And had no strength to reject it, even knowing that it was undeserved.
A balm to his wounds. Boromir chuckled with a blank irony. How banal.
Before leaving, he looked out of the window habitually, but instead of studying the sky to see what the day would bring them, his glance against his will found the balcony they had spent the evening at.
For the moment the ghosts of two figures arose before him. His own one and that of…Helanthir. The remembrance was striking, as if it was only then that he woke up to the reality of the last night.
It unexpectedly made him crave for being able to restore the talk word by word, move by move. To find out not only what it had been for him, but what it had been at all.
Peering into the empty space in front of him, Boromir was revoking the details of it, trying to see them as an outer watcher. He – an abject wreck, a beaten dog, leaning beggarly to receive a pat on the head… And she –
She…
He could say nothing about her. Absolutely nothing. For months he had been negligent when it was wiser to take a stock of her. He remembered about her only when she managed to disgruntle him, and even then he concentrated on his own perception of the happenings, not on her.
It was too characteristic of him. He never studied his friends or acquaintances – only his enemies. Now he wasn't able not just to say whether he had seen her at the contests, before he was handed the rose and thought it fit to play the mean trick he played. No, he couldn't even remember if she was conscious the day he brought her out of the cave in his own arms.
It was left to marvel why he was able to recognize her at all.
Now he'd have given much for knowing what was there in her eyes, when he closed his, defeated by the softness and consolation that she was.
Just may be, he shouldn't have sent her away. May be, he should have detained her hand, and wait -simply wait for what she was going to do with it. With him. To accept the consequences. And he had deprived himself of that through an unaccountable fear of his response to any further signs of…
Of what? Of anxiety? Of real concern?
Or of sheer feminine pity?
He loathed the thought of seeming pitiful. Yet being pitied by her didn't insult him. In a moment of weakness he let his mind unleash the memories of their talk, and his whole self shuddered at the vivid afterglow of the blend of pain, desperation, anger and that new, less dark but no less biting emotion which grew out of them…
Unexpressed gratefulness, perhaps. Or an urge to open up to the very bottom to hear that even his most concealed and indecent thoughts can be forgiven…And yet, she spoke of no guilt, which made the want of forgiveness simply irrelevant.
He measured the room with long steps, rubbing his chin in perplexity.
Why did she keep running from him and still did come back the moment he was eager to howl, not just to speak his mind? Supposing she cared for getting him, it was most unclear why she left when he was exposed and resigned to anything she could have taken into her head to do.
It was not hard to find her today and appease this urgent strife for clearness, but, for Eru's sake, how would he explain his sudden interest in her, if he couldn't understand it, either? Less than anything he wanted to remind her about their conversation.
If he could force her to be the first to remind him about it…
No, he wouldn't risk scaring her away. Not now. It was better for him to stay far from her on his own accord. If she had stepped over her unwillingness to approach him, he was ready to sacrifice his undue curiosity not to disturb her. He was not ungrateful, whatever it cost him to confess that he owed her. He could let her make the first move if she found it necessary.
And what if she didn't?
The intuition prompted him that it would be exactly this way. That the next time they met she would look through him with her clear eyes and step aside not to let the hem of her skirt touch him, as he would pass by. "I do remember what happened," her expression will tell him, "But it was yesterday, and today there's nothing in you that needs my attention."
The idea irked him as though she had already done that.
Now he already regretted he had been so sincere and yieldable.
With a certain difficulty he quelled the rising temper and settled for not thinking about it.
If she catches his eye today, he will pay some effort to draw her out of her sheltering detachment, especially because he had witnessed, that it was no more than a mask.
Otherwise he'd simply throw it out of his mind. And so be it.
Armed with this resolution, Boromir strolled out at last.
After a dozen of steps the Gondorian looked around cautiously and swiftly dove into the passage, in which he had run against the girl the previous morning.
He's been feeling more and more like a clerk lately. Yesterday's tournament was a single event during many a months, when he took a sword instead of a quill. Which couldn't be taken into consideration due to the shameful ending of the attempt. Of course, he didn't even try to look decent – he merely wanted to save his brother's honour…and his wife's, too.
That eternal talent of his – to be someone's scapegoat. To settle down everything and for everyone, and get punches in return. Sometimes he thought that was deserved – had he once rebelled, like Boromir, or stood aside leaving things flow with the stream, and he'd have broken out of the vicious circle. And whenever the time to do it came, he couldn't step over himself. One more time, lied his conscience, one more time you'll disregard yourself, and then act as you want.
The thing was that "then" was doomed to never happen, and he was very well aware of it.
Irritable, he scratched the parchment through with a rough gesture. Now the letter was to be started over.
Perhaps, that's why Eowyn had stopped believing in him. She got married to a warrior, and look at him – burying himself under a pile of schemes, directions, instructions, messages.
It was his fault. He was so eager to justify all hopes at once, that no one was ever pleased with him.
Crumpling the ruined letter in his hand, he looked back at the bed, where under the heavy canopy his wife was lying, her hair streaming down the pillow.
Tired after the night of constant celebration and the morning send-off, she was sleeping peacefully and soundlessly.
She always did.
For the first days of their marriage it scared him – he used to put his hand over her chest in the middle of the night to make sure she was breathing, because he heard neither inhales, no exhales. Once his palm felt the gentle heaving, he shook off the uncontrollable fear and embraced her, cuddling her slender body closer to him. She never woke up. Or pretended that she didn't. Even when he kissed her lips, hoping that she would respond and calm him down entirely…
Softened by the image, he got up and stole to the bed in careful steps. Eowyn knit her brows a little, when he stood in the light, which was flowing from the window, and Faramir moved away swiftly. The lines on her forehead smoothed out.
Eru the great, the woman enthralled him to no end.
The blanket slid down a bit, as Eowyn stirred, probably bothered by his watching her so intensely. This time he couldn't even bring himself to step away. She sighed in her sleep, throwing back her head – her lips parted so leisurely, that he choked of a hot surge rising inside.
Flinching from each sound, like a thief, he leaned forward, then a little more, feeling her breath warm his wishful mouth already.
No.
The sober thought made him recoil quickly. He didn't want to meet her scold when she woke up. Or what is worse, to see her hide her aversion and smile wanly, like she had done it several times when he ventured to insist on a kiss.
What was she doing with him?
Having suppressed the tremble in his hands, Faramir merely allowed himself to set her blanket straight and watch her for one last instant.
He left the chamber in haste, unwilling to look back and through it unaware of a pair of clear, wakeful eyes, following his retreat with disappointment.
Boromir was the first person the Prince of Ithilien met in the hall downstairs. Of all encounters this was the one Faramir would gladly avoid at the moment. He had no idea what else he could do to rouse his brother at last, and, being honest, after all that had happened he needed time at least to be able to watch him without а slight dash of awkwardness and irritation. Faramir was going to make a nod of recognition and pretend he was extremely busy, but Boromir was definitely tuned for a talk.
"Brother!" hailed he with a wave of his hand.
Reluctant, Faramir slackened his pace and stopped.
"Brother," echoed he blankly.
"Did anyone seek for me yesterday?" Boromir ignored the unwilling salute artfully – the ability, which Faramir often envied.
"Eomer," replied he as briefly.
"Eormer?" his brother raised one brow in question, "Why?"
Sighing inwardly, Faramir set off for elucidations. Yesterday the King of Rohan was suddenly stricken with an idea to take Boromir to Edoras. Faramir would have approved of it himself – there were enough swords and hands to clear Ithilien, and Rohan suffered a serious lack of skilled man after the war. Soldiers were many, which couldn't be said about Captains. There was a slight hope that, helping the allies, Boromir could at last be cured of whatever gnawed at him. But the former Capitan of Gondor demonstrated such a persistent malice, when someone tried to interfere with his daily routine, that Fararmir was simply afraid to think what reaction the offer to go to Rohan should bring.
However, his brother was surprisingly calm. It puzzled Faramir until he understood that half of what he was saying flew by Boromir. Something else occupied his mind to such an extent that he wouldn't notice even it Faramir fell silent suddenly. As if he was waiting for something.
No, Faramir corrected himself. Not for something. For someone.
Each time someone was descending the stairs, Boromir raised his head slightly and his nostrils widened, as though he wanted to imbibe the essence of the walker before the latter appeared in sight. But not one of those who came down was the object of this restless anticipation. Faramir could tell it by the way his brother's shoulders relaxed after each next arrival passed them by. It would have been natural to suppose that Boromir was expecting to meet Aragorn, if the King hadn't left early in the morning together with the rest of the visitors, which was very well known to everyone.
At last – or it was better to say "very soon" – Boromir got tired of waiting.
"Hey, lad!" called he, pointing at the nearest seemingly idle servant. The boy didn't make himself be asked twice, hurrying to the summon like his life depended on that.
"Is lady Helanthir down already?" asked Boromir with such an accented carelessness, that Faramir had to restrain himself from a surprised look.
"I don't know, milord", the man servant shrugged his shoulders.
"But you know her?"
"Yes, milord."
"Then find her and ask if she cares to join me for a ride," ordered Boromir , "Go."
Faramir assumed the indifferent expression just in time when his brother turned to study his suspiciously. Having calmed down at the sight of the apparent nonchalance, Boromir stretched his lips in a dry smile.
"I think I offended her yesterday. I want to apologize," clarified he, although Faramir didn't give any hint at being in want of an explanation. Especially of such a far-fetched one. As far as he knew Boromir, the man would never have uttered a word of excuse even if condemned to torture.
"Ah," said he politely.
The situation didn't amuse him anymore. While he saw that it was only the girl that took interest in Boromir, he could be calm, because she was obviously determined to keep as far from him as possible. Now that Boromir manifested interest in her, it was high time to raise the alarm. The older son of the Steward went to the end when it came about what he wanted. Faramir didn't remember a case when his brother refused the desired thing. To try to prevent him from reaching it was like to pour oil on the flames.
"You don't need me today, do you?" inquired Boromir suddenly, as though lately he had been totally indispensable. Faramir swallowed back the retort, and shook his head.
"I don't."
His brother nodded, more to himself than to Faramir. It was evident that he was already absorbed in the imaginary outing ahead, thinking it through carefully.
He woke up only when the servant who had been sent for "lady Helanthir", appeared in sight.
"Well?" asked Boromir with badly repressed impatience, as the boy approached them warily, "Is she coming?"
"Lady Helanthir begs you to forgive her, but she cannot ride horses," blurted out the boy. Faramir almost smirked with relief.
Boromir pressed his lips sternly, a shadow running across his face. The servant stepped back, having taken the sign of displeasure too close to heart.
"Do you wish me to insist?"
The Gondorian didn't answer. By his sharp disappointment Faramir guessed, that it wasn't the twist he had expected. His mistake was clear – he should have taken the pains of coming upstairs and delivering his invitation in person - but now Fararmir was too glad that it hadn't hit his brother to do so, and he didn't want to go too deep into the reasons of such laziness.
"You may be free," told he to the boy, who vanished in the blink of an eye.
Boromir seemed not to have noticed it. He was pensive again, but this time his thoughts weighted heavily on him. Faramir was pricked with pity, which obliterated all his annoyance against the older brother.
"Do you still need a company for your ride?" asked he, once more giving up to his habitual state of worrying for everyone and everything.
"No," Boromir roused himself up abrubtly, "No, thank you."
And, turning away, he disappeared in the crowded hall without a word of good-bye.