When the summons came, Myrhil briefly considered donning a disguise and leaving a note for Gríma that she would meet him on the road at a safe distance from the city. Slinking from Minas Tirith like a thief seemed preferable to an interview with Denethor.
She had never forgotten that tense breakfast at the Steward's table. The joy with which the sharp-featured ruler had wielded his sharp mind and sharper tongue in testing wills and verbal quickness had intimidated her into muteness. She had been rendered thus despite Boromir's presence. Ever since, she had avoided the Steward to the best of her abilities. Nor had he sought her out. It was a battle she knew she would lose, so she shunned it like a coward. He obviously felt the fight wouldn't be worth his while and ignored her.
Now she would meet him, face to face, perhaps alone. She felt her insides turn to water with every step. Never before had she wanted her mother beside her so much, though there was shame in seeking refuge in her company. It would speak of weakness and brand her of her unworthiness to be anything but a passing fancy for his son. Gondor's heir needed a strong consort of good blood. If she quailed before him, Denethor would care not how many orcs she had slain.
The guard escorting her to Denethor's chamber stopped and Myrhil, lost in thought, bumped into him. He stepped aside, his face emotionless in the manner of Citadel sentries, and rapped on the heavy, paneled door with precision.
It opened, and a man slipped into the hallway, a harried expression slowly fading into apparent relief at the interruption. Myrhil had seen him several times, and Boromir identified him as one of his father's able, burdened secretaries.
"Ah yes," he said upon seeing her. "Prompt and presentable."
Myrhil immediately looked down at her clothes in self-conscious appraisal. She had chosen a simple pale green gown, one of several dresses that Laenilas had been busying herself with while waiting for the Rohirrim to depart. Unadorned by lace, ribbons or beads, it also had a neckline square and modest, as much from its pattern as the fact that she possessed little to fill it to daring capacity.
With a polite bow, he gestured to the open door. Myrhil moved past him, hesitating as her foot hovered in the air over the threshold. But there was no plausible way to withdraw at this juncture, so she bit the inside of her cheek and entered the room. She kept her steps purposeful and her posture erect, yet hoped neither would be interpreted as arrogance. It was a fine line, and she was unsure what would cross it in Denethor's eyes.
She paused as a grand and glorious tapestry loomed before her, hung with reverence and lending the room an ostentation that she would have thought the Steward normally shunned. Whereas the one in Boromir's rooms depicted a hunt, this portrayed in excruciating detail a scene of peoples coming together on golden fields beneath the sun. Not in war, for the stances were not angry or lunging in attack, but calm and perhaps joyous. It was as though the weaver had allowed dreams of peace to overcome the reality of sporadic, predictable war.
The warmth that the tapestry evoked was quickly chased away. A chill and rainy summer day gripped Minas Tirith, and the stone and worn wood seemed steeped in the cold. A fire had not been lit to dispel the dampness and it was apparent that the inclement weather bothered Denethor not at all, for three of the large windows were swung open to the elements. Rain splattered on the sills, striking the edges of the panes. She was grateful for the sound, for the study was otherwise eerily quiet. Denethor wasn't there.
She turned and her gaze fell on a desk so large and imposing that she wondered how she could have missed it. It was large enough to accommodate a grown man lying full upon it with room to spare above his head and below his feet.
She flinched in surprise when a slight movement revealed that Denethor was indeed in the room, and that he was sitting behind the desk, his presence having been camouflaged in the grand austerity of the room since he possessed those very same traits himself. It was almost a marriage of man and surroundings.
The motive for the position of the grand tapestry and of the Steward's desk became clear when she watched him regard her silently. The image one saw upon entering would render them immobile with awe just long enough for Denethor to see expressions and gestures that could betray true feelings a heartbeat before mutual awareness threw up the walls of guarded conversation. The Steward no doubt possessed the gift of far-sightedness, but Myrhil surmised that it was, in no small part, due to logical and simple tricks such as these.
She had to suppress the urge to flinch again when he spoke, though the silence had lasted well past a comfortable breaking point.
"There's no need to be frightened."
Myrhil didn't know if he had detected some minute spasm despite her best efforts to hide it, or if he had always intended to open the meeting thusly.
"I'm not," she mustered.
His eyes left her and a flicker of condescension around his mouth plainly said that he didn't believe her. He rose from his chair with surprising grace for his seventy-eight years. Though he possessed the long-lived blood of the Númenoreans and such continued vigor was natural, Myrhil had rarely, if ever, seen it herself. She could not help but think of her own father, stiff and coarse after years of hard fighting and living. Denethor was no stranger to combat, but the harsh life of the plains he had never known. Just then, a breeze came rushing down Hollenduin and through one of the open windows. It swept over her skin, piercing the fabric and raising bumps along her arms and legs. It was a reaction she had had countless times back home, as the winds that coursed down the slopes of the Ered Nimrais could chill one to the bone any month of the year.
Denethor skirted his desk with deliberate steps. He still did not look at her and Myrhil tried not to intensify her unease by speculating on the meaning of his every gesture. She clasped her hands behind her back in the manner of a pupil enduring a lesson by a frustrated pedagogue. It was the only way she could be certain they would not shake or, if they did, that he would not see how much he unnerved her.
"No doubt Boromir knows you're here," he said, without prelude or ceremony.
Myrhil shook her head. "I do not inform him of all my actions, my lord."
Denethor smiled at that, his mouth curving so slightly that at first she was not certain she had seen it. "I'm heartened to hear it," he continued, pausing at a table upon which several maps and charts were strewn.
"Heartened?" she asked, confused. "You're glad I keep secrets from your son?"
Denethor shrugged as he gazed at a map that, from Myrhil's vantage point, detailed the interior of Gondor, the region she would soon be traveling through. "Enough of what you tell – or do not tell – Boromir. We may return to that, for I do have some questions."
Myrhil nodded, but only because she had little choice. This meeting was his; he controlled it utterly.
Holding out one hand, he motioned for her to join him in studying the maps. She obeyed and stood beside him silently, her eyes fixed on the large chart. The route she would take was no mystery. It would be the way she had come.
"It is a long way," he commented. "I'm nearly inclined to ask why you wish to do it."
Myrhil interpreted his words as a command, though on the surface it appeared he cared not to know her reasons for his attention seemed directed towards the map. "I've explained to Boromir," she said.
"And he agrees?"
She paused, conflicted. "He understands." Denethor said nothing, though his stance implied he was keen to hear more. "It's a matter of honor," she elaborated. "A debt I must repay to the scribe."
Denethor looked up from his perusal of the map, his eyes and expression unreadable. "So simple," he remarked. "Almost absurdly admirable in its simplicity."
Myrhil's gaze sank before his observation, her cheeks prickling in an embarrassed flush. He was ridiculing her for her childish notions of honor, her dutiful adherence to a code that pragmatists followed only when it suited them, but shunned obeying as a general rule.
"Yes, simple," she managed, "but I was taught to conduct myself by few, but important, rules."
"Soldier's rules."
Myrhil paused, unsure how to proceed. She knew of the ill feelings that the Steward had borne – and evidently still carried – toward her father. And she had suspected that Denethor, perhaps against his will or perhaps not, bore a measure of the same prejudice against her. To admit that she was doing as her father would have done, to flaunt that name from the past before Denethor's face, would surely cast a pall over an already dour conversation.
Denethor's unrelenting scrutiny burned her from head to toe. She was so certain he compared her to her father that she was startled when another name passed his lips.
"I see nothing of Laenilas in you."
If she hadn't known that verbal barbs left no physical wound, Myrhil would have believed she bled. How to answer that? The truth? Did it matter if she tried to mask her true feelings? Wouldn't he see it with his keen sight, regardless?
"No, I am very much my father's daughter," she replied stiffly. "Simple, crude and of poor blood. I make no apologies for it."
"Then it would be best to find a man who shares those qualities, wouldn't you say?"
The question cut her like a knife, despite having already told herself that he would likely be ungentle about her suitability for Boromir.
"I have told Boromir many times, my lord, that I am neither whore nor a lady like those I have seen here on the Citadel. In other words, I do not deserve to be discarded roughly, but I also do not expect to ever call this place home, Faramir my brother, or you father."
Denethor regarded her with undisguised appraisal. "Your clear thinking is admirable. I had expected tears."
"Perhaps, had I no other purpose before me," Myrhil said honestly, "but I do." She placed her hand flat against the map. "My mind is fully preoccupied with this, not courting approval which I know will never come."
When she finished, she had to refrain from exhaling in relief that the words had come out as she had intended. His direct insult had forced her to find her tongue, and while her ire urged her to speak recklessly, she felt she had exercised due restraint.
"You would give up Boromir of your own volition?"
"I did not say that."
"But you will bow to reality?"
Myrhil pressed her lips together, wanting to hate him but finding it impossible when he was only voicing what she had thought and feared since she and Boromir's first coupling.
"With protest and a heavy heart," she told him. "Rejoicing will have to come from other quarters. A woman would have to be blind or a fool to willingly leave your son. Either son."
Denethor's eyebrows rose in surprise. "If that is an offer to accept the lesser prize in order to retain a chance at the greater, think again."
"I would never attempt to negotiate such things with you, my lord. Faramir, if I may be blunt, deserves a far finer woman than what your heir desires."
"Now that is an interesting observation, for I would propose the opposite. Faramir needs steel to balance his scholar's mind. Sparks from a blade to counteract the dust motes from books."
"Faramir is already a warrior," Myrhil pointed out, confused. "He needs no woman to stiffen his spine or give him courage and purpose."
"That you presume to know him better than I hints at some gift of judging character I lack."
Myrhil bowed in apology at this hint of simmering anger. "I have been in Faramir's company only briefly, I admit, and my impressions of a suitable wife are undoubtedly flawed."
She kept her eyes to the ground, wishing that he would dismiss her and she could turn round and leave this torturous room behind. Her mother admired him; perhaps even loved him. Or had, in the past. She tried to remember that, but he was so very hard and cold. Would that she could be a fly upon the wall during one of her mother's meetings with him. Several times Laenilas had vanished into the Steward's House or Tower, either obeying his summons or seeking an audience. What was discussed, her mother would not reveal. No doubt a measure of petitioning and haggling for hospitality took place, but Myrhil would not believe that talk never turned to other matters, other times, moments when the Steward perhaps thawed into nostalgic pleasantries.
He had not spoken and Myrhil, eyes still fixed upon the floor, began to wonder if she had been dismissed through some silent command. She waited a moment more. "Begging your leave—"
"But you have sufficient steel, do you not?"
Myrhil started in confusion and surprise. Something within her warned to tread carefully. "If I have to fight, I fight."
Denethor settled back on his heels and looked up at the ceiling in overly casual contemplation. "Odd. It's been my impression that your tendency to court mischief has been inerrant."
"Mischief?" Myrhil asked, looking askance at him. "Who has termed it thus? And I do not court it."
"Then that prisoner ran his own head into the door?"
"Boromir told you."
"The man is – was – my prisoner," Denethor informed her. "I have delegated the task of questioning such people to my sons, not you. And now the man is dead. Not only that, but a Rohirrim is still missing. It has been two days. Both occurred the same night."
Myrhil rigidly controlled her breathing, though she felt her gut contract. "I have heard of both mysteries. I hope they are solved quickly. It must be troublesome to you."
Denethor ignored her offering of sympathy. "You had no love for the prisoner," he said bluntly. "You were intent on doing him harm."
"Interrogation and murder are two separate things."
"You were unable to wrench all that you wanted from him on that day," he went on, "and so you ventured forth again. That very same night."
Cold shot through her body. The room suddenly seemed like a dungeon and she instinctively looked over her shoulder at the door, her only means of escape. It was a gesture of admitted guilt, and she knew it as soon as she heard him move closer behind her. Slowly, she turned back to him, but her eyes remained lowered.
"I saw you leave the Citadel that night," he said, "and I saw in which direction you went."
Myrhil thought her ears were deceiving her, but Denethor's voice seemed more kindly than before, now that she had been caught. Still, it was not friendly or inviting. Perhaps he was relieved that she had not attempted to protest and prolong the deceit. It would not be an equal match of wits or knowledge, and such a lop-sided game would be tiresome to him.
"The Steward sits very high indeed," she mumbled, "to see all things, even in the dark of night." She lifted her chin and forced herself to look him in the eye. "So then, is this now to become an interrogation as well?"
Denethor shook his head. "I will not call upon Boromir to question, and none shall lay a hand upon you. But I do require answers, full and truthful."
Myrhil's mind raced. It was not only herself that depended upon how she answered, but another as well. She could not speak of Gríma's actions that night and leave him to the mercy of both Denethor and his own lord, Elfléda. Yet if Denethor had seen her, then it was likely that he had also witnessed Gríma's movements. Even so, she would not tell him anything about the scribe.
"You're not capable of murder, Myrhil," he said, and she flinched at this first enunciation of her name. She had never heard him say it before, and the familiarity pushed her more precariously on edge. "Someone else is, and I would know the culprit's identity."
"The prisoner was dead when I got there."
"And you entered…how?"
"I stole the keys from Boromir. I replaced them when I returned."
Denethor was silent and Myrhil wondered if he was tucking away a notation to remind his eldest son to beware of women with light fingers in bedrooms.
"And your reaction?" he resumed. "When you discovered that your quarry was dead."
"Enraged," she said flatly.
"Was anyone else there?"
"No."
"Think harder."
Myrhil paused, then decided to push his persistence further. "I saw no one. I heard no one. The man was dead and abandoned. I've told Boromir all of this."
"Not quite," Denethor pointed out. "He was under the impression that you merely walked by the gaol, but did not enter."
"So I did," Myrhil replied, flustered. "My intention was to not worry him by my actions, foolish as they were."
"Did that scribe from Rohan follow you? Apart from my son – my eldest son – it is this scribe you have chosen to pass your time with. I don't think it out of place for him to have dogged your every step that night, considering you returned together. Someone did follow you from the Citadel of like size and movement."
Myrhil felt her limbs turn into seventy shades of ice. It was the question she had dreaded above all others. She would rather defend Gríma with a sword than with her mind. The former was sharp and she could wield it with some measure of success. Her wits were dull, poorly tended, and unreliable.
"It's likely I'll never wrest an answer from either of you," he said. "I haven't even bothered to question the scribe. It would ruffle feathers I wish to keep smooth. The prisoner, a lowlife, is dead. So be it. One of the Rohirrim is missing, and unless you can tell me that both deaths are related, then I'll continue to affirm to the good Ambassador that our hands are unsullied by his disappearance."
Confusion beat Myrhil about the head and shoulders and she tried to grasp onto something to tell him, something he would want to hear and which was partially true. A kernel of truth would hopefully lend her some conviction in expression and voice.
"I only met the missing man, Falvöd, briefly and on few occasions. I saw him the day before his disappearance, or when his absence was first noticed. He seemed interested in the fact that there was a prisoner."
Genuine interest flickered in Denethor's eyes. "Indeed? His manner was curious?"
Myrhil saw a fate of shackles and a cell grow more faint as the light of suspicion edged away from her and towards the dead Rohirrim. Self-preservation begged her to shunt her own guilt even further onto the dead man, but if she seemed remotely eager or overly helpful, Denethor would rightly suspect her motives.
"A natural curiosity, no doubt," she said. "That quarter of the city was buzzing that morning with speculation."
He nodded. "It seems likely that he witnessed something none were meant to see."
Myrhil made a subdued gesture of agreement. "My lord, I beg your leave now to prepare for my journey. Gríma and I will leave tomorrow at dawn."
Denethor waved her away towards the door and Myrhil bowed in respectful leave-taking. Her cheeks felt hot and she wondered if they were pink enough to betray her unease. Though matters stood well at the moment, she would not rest easy until she and Gríma stopped along the road the first night of their journey and Minas Tirith was well to their backs.
She had reached the door and had just placed her hand on the latch when it was flung open, forcing her to leap backwards or be struck by it.
The secretary who had greeted her earlier hustled past her and made straightway for Denethor, who seemed as startled at the man's sudden appearance as she.
Myrhil did not move as she watched him impart something to Denethor, their heads bowed together, the secretary's voice a whisper. She could discern nothing and, rather than appear to be desperately eavesdropping, she turned again to leave.
"Wait."
Myrhil froze and looked over her shoulder at the Steward. Denethor strode across the room, his secretary in tow. With a gesture, he dismissed the man to what appeared to be an agreed destination, for he bowed and set off down the corridor with great purpose.
"Step inside."
Her body obeyed, though Myrhil felt her mind had no part of it. Everything seemed distant and hazy, like a nightmare over which the sleeper had no control. She retreated into the study and stood unmoving. Waiting.
"It appears that a drunken fool in this active gaol complained so persistently about a stench that the guard sent a man into the drain and along the sewer until he found the cause of it. A bloated corpse."
Myrhil did not feel the need to feign shock. She was genuinely horrified. She had not dragged Falvöd far enough. She had not believed that a reeking hole for drunks could not mask the smell of putrefaction, or that one of the "guests" would force the guards to tend petty complaints.
"This becomes increasingly interesting, yes?" he remarked. Then, with rigid calm, he asked, "What do you know of this? You…were…there."
Each word seemed to press her down further into the muck and mire that had slowly but steadily gripped her with every minute she had spent in this room and his presence.
"He was there, dead…when I entered," she croaked, unshed tears straining her throat.
"You hid the body."
"Yes."
"The prisoner was dead as well?"
She nodded, the gesture limp and defeated.
"But you decided to conceal a murder," he pressed. "Why?"
"The…the anger it would unleash," she mumbled. "Breaking an alliance with Rohan…"
Denethor peered at her closely, his skepticism palpable. "You unwisely steal your way in there, you discover a murdered man on the floor, and your one and only thought is the misfortune it could bring upon Gondor?"
"Yes."
"Do you believe I should commend you for that?"
Myrhil refused to look him in the eye. "I should not demand anything, only do not imprison me."
"I have no intention of shutting you in a dungeon," he told her. "But," he added, when her relief showed itself, "you may have the rest of Gondor, and even the entirety of all other lands, to wander about."
Myrhil braced herself for the words she knew were coming, yet dreaded to hear. They dripped off his tongue, each drop caustic and painful.
"You must never enter Minas Tirith again. I forbid it. Nor shall you come within a day's ride, sail, or, should you sprout wings, flight of the city. Is that clear?"
"Who else will know of it?"
"That is your choice," he told her. "I cannot think of one more unsuited for an heir of Gondor, so you may convey those sentiments in your farewells, on the condition that you also admit to your own misdeeds."
Myrhil knew that anger would not help, that it could stoke Denethor's order of exile to harsher heights. But surely he could see that there was something horribly wrong with Falvöd in the gaol in the first place?
"You burn to say something," he observed. "Say it."
She desperately tried to gather her thoughts and suspicions, knowing that a frantic accusation of treachery would seem outlandish and weighty. The Steward would want facts: names, faces, and events. That he had judged her purely by his own ideas of what made one worthy to bed or wed seemed beside the point. She did love Gondor, and she had hidden Falvöd as much for Gondor's sake as she had for Gríma's. That motive, however, would have to remain forever unspoken.
"The Rohirrim," she began. "There is something not right amongst them. Falvöd should not have been there for any reason."
"I believe that has been obvious for some minutes," Denethor replied. "Ambitious men always need watching. Perhaps your arrival in Rohan, and your gift for troublemaking, will preoccupy them."
"Is that an order?" she asked, confused.
"Hardly. Even if they are plotting for whatever reason, they have my condolences."
The words stung, and as though in sympathy, the scar on her shoulder from the orc's teeth began to throb, reminding her of a time when she had fought and won. There was nothing but defeat when standing opposite Denethor.
He had made his feelings all too plain. She was not wanted. If she remained or returned out of spite, her days would find biting words tossed her way, making pleasure with Boromir a bittersweet refuge. And there was the matter of her own "misdeeds", as Denethor called them. He knew of them, and she had lied to Boromir. Her lover had been tolerant and indulgent of her actions in the past, mildly frustrated but eventually amused. She feared that she had leapt into other, darker territory when she had stolen his keys and concealed a murder, however unsuccessfully.
She had decided. She would say goodbye, but she would never come back.
Please please review! Don't be stingy! It makes the baby Jesus grab his shotgun.
