What is it men in women do require?
The lineaments of Gratified Desire.
What is it women do in men require?
The lineaments of Gratified Desire.
-from Several Questions Answered, by William Blake
With the good fortune of early summer rain, Rhoswen's garden had become more of a concern than it had been in preceding months. She had barely gotten the seeds into the ground when the Siege of Minas Tirith had begun, and it was only due to the grace of the Valar that the little seedlings, coming up while their mistress was running to and fro in the Houses of Healing, had not been choked by weeds. Now that some of them were reaching full growth, it was still a constant battle to keep them healthy and Rhoswen's visits had, by necessity, increased to keep up with her garden's needs.
It was her rock and her refuge. Here she did not need to be the Lady of the City, or the Steward's wife, but only Rhoswen. And some days, that was more necessary than others. Éowyn had recognized this, after the battle of the Pelennor Fields, and Lottie, too, was beginning to see that every woman caught up in affairs of state must have something to which she can retreat and lose herself.
Yet today, the door was open, just a little, as though someone had shut it behind herself in haste. It was not a forbidden place; often a little crying maid who wanted an out of the way place to salve her sorrows was told to go seek out the Lady's garden to have out her grief and collect herself. Rhoswen cracked the door open, not wanting to disturb the concealed privations of some heart-broken young miss. But there was no crying in the garden court beyond, so Rhoswen crept inside, her footsteps heavy on the gravel.
There was a visitor here, but no woman; he looked up at the sound of her footsteps, rising quickly from the bench.
"Your pardon, Lady Rhoswen, I did not mean to disturb your preserve."
Rhoswen had to smile. Of all the people in the city to say it, it sounded strangest coming from him. "The king is welcome to go anywhere he wishes in the city, my lord. And the garden is open to all comers regardless. Sit, please," she said again. "I am only weeding."
Aragorn resumed his place on the bench, smiling a little pensively. "It is a pretty little plot," he said, after a long silence in which Rhoswen had found the place where her planting beds needed the most help and settled herself into the path. "Your work shows well here."
"The garden belonged to Boromir's mother, Finduilas. She planted it when she first came here and was homesick for the coast. Some of the roses there are her original plantings," Rhoswen said, pointing to the sea-roses that grew best near the shore. "They do not like it here, but we can coax a few blossoms out of them, if the sun holds."
"I imagine you are very good at coaxing things," the King observed wryly.
"Only plants, my lord, people are another matter."
"You certainly did well enough with the Lady Dis. I'm sure Boromir told you she didn't drive as hard a bargain for trade tariffs as we thought she would."
"I had heard that, yes. Which reminds me," Rhoswen realized, searching her planting beds for the meadowsweet she had sought to give to Dis' people as an herbal decoction for the Ambassador's aching joints. "I promised one of her people a curative. I'll have to prepare that today."
"The athelas you sent to the houses came from this garden, too," Aragorn said, glancing around the planting beds.
"It did, my lord. Just over there is where it grows. I keep it for the sweet scent it gives – though we have other uses for it now," she said, watching him make his way over to the plant, considering it first with his eyes and then his fingers, which had worked such wonders with that little herb only a short while ago. His hands seemed almost too clean to be in a garden, the emerald-eyed ring on his finger winking merrily in the sunlight, as if to say "Look at me! I do not belong here." But they were not always so clean, once. He was a man of the wilds many years, they say.
"In the north, they call it kingsfoil, and deem it a weed," Aragorn said, fingering the little silvery leaves thoughtfully. "You would never find it in a garden such as this."
"I am sure there is some garden somewhere where all of what I have here is unwanted, and the plants that I weed out here are left to grow in peace. Boromir said they had such gardens in Rivendell, wild and untouched by a gardener's hands, and perfect for it."
"They do indeed. I remember playing in them, as a child, with my mother. My first great adventures were in those gardens – my first battles… and my first wounds." He said this with a sad smile, reminiscing, the kingsfoil still in his hands. He had certainly crushed the leaf, for the smell was on the air now, faintly calling Rhoswen back to the smells of her childhood – and Aragorn's as well, she was sure. But no child talks of scrapes and bruises as wounds, Rhoswen thought to herself. He thinks of some other doings in the gardens of Rivendell.
"Tell me about Arwen, my lord." The question came out impulsively. Aragorn looked at her, surprised that she should know the name. "I asked Boromir about your lady," she explained, almost apologizing, "And he said that her name was Arwen, and that she was of the house of Elrond, and as fair among her people as a princess."
"Then you've heard all there is to hear." The answer was short – and sad. He turned his gaze away from her, but Rhoswen would not be swayed. She'd asked, and she wished to get the tale entire.
"No, my lord, I do not think that. That is not enough for a man in love. Certainly not enough for a man who seeks solace in the very gardens that will remind him of his lady."
She could be firm, she could be fair – and sometimes she could strike a hard blow. And this one had hit its mark. Aragorn sighed, glancing at Rhoswen as if to ask, silently, if he was really required to answer. "Lord Elrond is her father, and she is of the lineage, also, of Galadriel, the Lady of Lothlorien, who is of the High Elves, the Vanyar, who came out of the west. She is the evening star, and the night is brighter when she passes by, and the flowers turn their heads to watch her as they watch the moon, or the sun. I have loved her for long, long time, but always at a distance, as her father decreed." And I miss her terribly, his eyes finally seemed to say.
Having said this, a little of the care seemed to fall away from his face, and he smiled a little. Here, now, was the poet Rhoswen had heard Aragorn to be. Raised among the elves, he had a better sense of poetry, their own special way of looking at the world as though all things were sacred, and worthy of elevation into song. Once at dinner he had offered a few lines of an old lay, the words hanging beautiful and splendid as stars in the Merethrond before a tide of clapping released them. He had not graced them with any song since, but she thought she might have to change that, if these were the jewels they would be treated to.
"That was why you went away, to see Rohan, and Gondor, and all the places you have been," she said, trying to understand the man she would call king a little better. That much of his story, at least, Boromir knew and would share with her.
"Her father said we would not marry until I was made King, for his daughter could marry no less. I was a young man then, and desolate. Until a good friend drew me away into the adventures you speak of."
"But you are the King now," Rhoswen reminded him. "The whole city lies at your command, and the crown is yours."
Aragorn's acknowledgement of this was slow. "When I was a young man and had not yet seen the White City I dreamed that she would join me here – but her people are from the lands of woods and rivers, and a city of stone with no gardens would hold no joy for her. I do not know now if she would come. Many miles lie between us, and I do not know if I could ask what I want to ask of her. Forsaking the immortal life of her people, and abandoning the utter west for which all her people have longed, and for which she was made."
That is the voice of a man who has not seen the woman he loves in a long time. He would not speak so if he could see her – or she could see him. If she has come this far, she will not give him up so easily. Women who have been in love share that common sisterhood, at least. And they say the elves love longer than the lives of men.
"She will come," Rhoswen assured him. "And the city will rejoice for her coming, as it rejoiced for yours." The king still looked unconvinced, his face lingering in doubt and sadness. Rhoswen tried to think of something that would cheer him, convince him that this could come to pass, and would, if he would let it. "We could build her such gardens here." Her voice was soft with promise and foreboding.
Aragorn's face opened up into a smile and he gave a small chuckle. "I'll hold you to that oath, lady," he threatened gently. He still did not believe her.
But Rhoswen was in earnest, and would not be gainsaid. "The city crumbles in some places there are houses – whole blocks, even! - not fit to be lived in that could easily come down with a little more help. New lodging could be found for the families there, and the rubble cleared for garden beds."
"Have you not enough work already? Would you tend them all as you have done here?"
Rhoswen's face held a laugh for a moment, and then lapsed into sad thoughtfulness. "This city has many widows, my king, many in want of some small, dignified task to keep their children fed. It would not be so difficult to find a few of them to lodge near each plot and keep them in good repair."
The king nodded. Now he began to see. "It is a sensible request, and would spare some cost to the treasury, I'm sure, for the building of those same houses over the old. I'll put it to the council – in your name, of course."
Ah, the council. The cadre of Gondor's oldest and noblest family patriarchs, whose opinion had not really been asked during Denethor's time. Now that the king had returned they, too, had returned to the city to guide their new leader – or take any power he might have wished for away. If Boromir had been skeptical in the early days of Aragorn's acquaintance, these men were even worse. "Take the credit yourself, my lord. I need none." If it will assure them of your kingly graces, I'll give you half a dozen more items to take to them as your own. I know too well what it is like to come to a place having to prove your worth to stone-faced judges.
Aragorn nodded. "You've given me much to think on this morning, my lady."
"I hope all of them are good thoughts, my lord, for I daresay you have enough of the other kind from other people," she said with a smile. Here, now, the King smiled, finally a little lightened in mood.
He departed in his own fashion, leaving Rhoswen to the weeds and her flowers. The garden emerged slowly from its overgrowth, the pile of clippings for the scrap heap growing by the hour. It was not all work - she sat back on her heels and watched a robin build its nest in one of the fruit trees sheltering near the garden's wall, industriously carrying little bits of dead plant material to a little fork in the tree's branches, setting each bit down and nestling it into place. A little late in the season for nest building, but it was better late than never.
She and Boromir were nesting now, too, in many ways – her things had finally been moved into Boromir's rooms, following their little wedding ceremony. Now they were only waiting on the little chicks to fill their nest, and feathering it accordingly. The tree the bird had picked had lost a few of its branches to falling debris during the siege, giving it a broken, sway-backed look, an incomplete feeling where the foliage suddenly ended and bare, splintered branches jutted out. Somehow the nest returned a feeling of completeness. Children will give that back to the city, too, Rhoswen thought, fingering the little seedlings thoughtfully as she thinned the herb beds and plucked the smallest, weakest shoots out to give the larger ones room to grow. Now we must use our growing room.
The door to the garden opened only once all day – when Rhoswen had her back to it, rooting out a particularly tall and well established dandelion towering over her herb beds. By the time she'd pulled the thing out, and flown backwards a few steps in the process, Bergil had already made his way inside, laughing as the dandelion's roots shook dirt everywhere. He stopped when he remembered that this was his lady, and not one to be laughed at, and spent a moment recovering himself before proffering the package he'd been sent with.
"Maireth sent me to bring you something to eat," he said, offering a corked clay bottle and a wrapped cloth package containing a vaguely warm handpie. "She said I was supposed to make sure you eat it all, or she'd swat me."
Rhoswen laughed, remembering how easy it was when she had been eight to earn a sharp rapping from her nursemaid-turned-maidservant. "She does worry, doesn't she? Well, come on, sit down with me." She rose from her knees at the side of the garden bed and let her back realign itself before she paused, thinking about something. "Shouldn't you be with the other boys in class?" she asked, wiping her hands on her apron and sitting down to break the pie in half. Last night's meat – a good economy for the noontide meal. In the days of Denethor's lackluster housekeepers that food might have gone to waste.
"I'm on half-days now that I'm Lord Boromir's page," Bergil said proudly. "Lessons in the mornings and afternoons I'm to serve. Although I've still got classwork to do," he added miserably.
"What was today's lesson?" Rhoswen asked, chewing through a small bite of her pie.
"Mathematics," Bergil said with evident displeasure. "If I've got to bring fifty arrows for every archer in my company for every day we're in the field, and the company is divided out into five captains with twenty five archers each, how many arrows do we have to bring?
"How many days will you be in the field?" Rhoswen asked, doing a little mental calculation herself and thinking, with a little amusement, of another man in her life who had been doing very similar calculations recently and grumbling about it.
"They won't tell us! I have to guess and tell them why I chose that and whatever I say will be wrong. And anyway, it's a lot of numbers. Why can't everyone just bring his own?"
"Because arrows are expensive, on a soldier's pay. Because then some soldiers might not bring any at all, and then what use would they be to you?" Rhoswen said. Bergil, clearly having not considered this, looked a little put out for a moment.
"How long do you think you'll be in the field?" Rhoswen asked.
"I don't know! They didn't tell me who we were fighting. If it was someone who didn't know how to fight, it wouldn't be for very long."
"Boromir always plans for an extra two or three days, just in case. Let us say you'll be gone for – a week. Seven days." Rhoswen shifted her uneaten pie to the bench next to her and went over to the pile of dead branches waiting for one of the house gardeners to chop them up and cart them away. Finding a suitably long stick, she flattened the dirt in front of the bench with the bottom of her shoe and began writing out the figures. "Plus two extra – that's nine. Five captains, twenty five archers each. We could do that separately."
Their dirt counting board got quite a bit of use until Bergil was reasonably sure (but still a little annoyed) that he could finish his calculations. Rhoswen sent him on his way with the empty cloth, keeping the bottle to bring back on her own.
The city bell tolled the passing of another hour, and Bergil scrambled to his feet, apologizing quickly and making a hasty, but mostly polite, exit, back to his lord and his page's duties. Rhoswen watched him go and then glanced at the remains of his mathematics, which he'd put his foot into in his haste to leave. How many arrows must a man account for going to battle? A heady problem for an eight-year old. Let us hope he has no need of that skill in figuring, or that his use of it is limited only to cheeses in the chamberlain's stores. Let us hope the king has given us that much peace.
It was a vain hope, she knew. The Dwarves of Erebor had only been one embassy, and them an ally. There were still more who would come to Gondor, once their own countries had settled a little more, peoples who had been allies of Sauron, peoples that she hoped against all hope would agree to remain peaceably on Gondor's borders. Some of them had been allies of Gondor, in the dark, dark days of the past, and some had always been set against the White City. Well, maybe there was a time to change everything. It was a new age, was it not? Rhoswen wiped the last of the math away into the path and went back to her weeding.
The only prompt she needed to stop work was the sun, finally dipping towards the horizon just low enough to strike her eyes and make the work difficult. The bell would be tolling the dinner hour soon, and she needed to change before she sat down to eat. Gathering up her tools and her empty bottle, Rhoswen took a final glance at the garden and smiled. Much better than when she had started this morning. She picked several bundles of herbs, laying them into her basket for drying in her workshop in the Houses, and closed the door firmly behind her.
There was no great dinner of state tonight, so Rhoswen and Boromir were enjoying the chance to eat dinner alone in their own apartments – the table in the solar was already laid for two, the maidservants under Maireth's exacting direction just laying out candles to light the meal.
"Now, don't you track those muddy shoes in here, mistress, or I'll make you scrub the dirt out of the carpet yourself!" the chief servant exclaimed, sending one of her young charges for another set of Lady Rhoswen's shoes, and "something to put that apron in before it's sent to the laundry." The Lady of Minas Tirith paused for a moment with good natured-patience as the shoes were brought and her gardening dress received a cursory brushing off near the entrance to the apartments, where the debris could be swept away before it was ground into the rugs. Clean enough to enter her apartment and change out the offending clothes, Rhoswen crossed the carpets and shut the door to her private chambers firmly behind her. She'd undress without Maireth's help.
But the bedroom was not unoccupied – in her fluster about the dinner service, Maireth seemed to have forgotten that Boromir had come home. Already in residence at his desk, he did not even look up as Rhoswen snapped the door shut. Rhoswen's soft house-shoes scarcely made a sound against the thick carpet as she looked to see what so occupied her husband that he didn't hear the heavy door open and close.
Boromir's worktable was littered with papers, including one large and very detailed map of the realm that seemed to be at the base of his worries. That was what he had started with, it seemed, laying out a network of the little riverstones he used as paperweights. The other parchments, though, were filled with brilliant winks of jewel-tone and glossy wax, the inks of the heralds and the court copyists. Rhoswen picked up one that had fallen to the floor – a rendering of a shield, a family sigil she didn't recognize, a hunting horn over a drawn sword on a white field. Dozens more like it lay scattered over the desk, though there were three or four in Boromir's immediate view. But, following Boromir's furrowed gaze, he seemed to be looking not at them, but through them, lost in thought. She laid a gentle hand on his shoulder, and he tensed, turning like he expected to be discovered at something wrong. When he saw it was only his wife, his face relaxed– but not by much.
"A busy day in court today?" Rhoswen asked, choosing to ignore the parchments that seemed to be troubling him. Boromir looked relieved, and he nodded, though he did not rise from his chair.
"The king was a little late – he said he'd seen you in the garden and lost track of the hour."
"That's true. I didn't know I'd delay him," Rhoswen admitted. "My apologies for upsetting the court," she said, leaning in to kiss her husband on the cheek and squeeze his shoulder. His muscle there was tense – he'd been sitting there like that for some time. "What's this?" she asked, as if she'd just noticed it. Boromir tried to shuffle it away, unsuccessfully hiding it underneath still more sigils from the heralds. The pile, agitated by the sudden movement, teetered on the edge of his desk and then tottered off, parchments cascading off the table's edge, revealing more of the map and its little stone paperweights. Boromir sat back in his chair and looked defeated.
She watched him for a moment, waiting to see if he would offer the source of his discontent without prompt. Eventually he realized she was making a study of him, and began to speak, but thought the better of it and closed his lips again, looking away.
Now, that won't do. She rose again and pulled the chair from her desk over to stand next to his own, disregarding his court finery and her ragged-edge work clothes to sit down and lay her hand on his leg, forcing him to turn towards her a little. "Let this ring be a sign of the covenant that was signed between us, and a reminder of the duties I am bound to give thee," she said, her marriage band plain and bright against her skin, and Boromir's court tunic behind it. "Your burdens do not have to remain your own, Boromir."
Her husband's eyes dropped again to the map on his worktable. "We talked today during the noon recess of plans and fiefdoms. Gondor still needs its Stewards, he says." His words seemed to be veiled, as if something else were troubling him and he didn't really want to say it aloud. The king is right, and he knows that. But that is not where your problem lies, is it, husband? She'd have to be patient with him.
"And what does Boromir say?" Rhoswen asked carefully.
"I told him a Steward is a servant, and needs no more reward than to be useful to his king." Boromir swallowed, his brow furrowed and his lips set. "I wanted power once, and power did not become me," he said, almost reminding himself of the truth in those words. "There have been whispers in my ears I have not wanted to hear."
Whispers? Does the shadow take root in his mind again?
But he went on. "I whispered the same, a short time ago. How Gondor had no need of kings. Not everyone loves the idea of a King who has spent so long in the wild, away from his people. Some wish a different man would take his throne and rule. And I cannot be that man!" These last words were nearly shouted, punctuated by a fist hammered hard on his desk, hard enough to bruise. His eyes were wild with grief, and Rhoswen nearly flew out of her chair to keep his hands contained in his lap, bringing her eyes to the same level as his.
"Who speaks thus?" she asked, unable to contain the question. This is treason, even if he is but newly made king.
Boromir shook his head and would not meet her gaze. "Men filled with grief. I will not say their names. I will not betray my king - but I cannot let him put me in a place where that is even possible. I told him to send me far away - watching the mountain pass to Rohan, if he could. A man without power and without friends is no threat."
Or every threat imaginable, Rhoswen thought to herself. It is the friendless who plot and scheme. "No! No, you must stay here, Boromir, where men can see you and your loyalty. If he has the house of the Stewards, people will trust him and his rule. Aragorn knows your fidelity better than any man - and the whisperers must see that you will not be their puppet, or anyone else's. You know your own mind well enough to stand fast no matter what they say or offer." She let that sink in, and then added, tentatively, "You've stood against stronger flatteries than theirs and triumphed."
It was the wrong thing to say. She saw that too late, watching his body tense in front of her, his jaw clenching at the memories. But then he relaxed a little, and his eyes found her hands, clutched over his. He turned to look up at her with a slight, grateful smile.
"What would I do without you?"
"Freeze in the mountains, alone in your little watchtower," Rhoswen said flatly. That, at least, made her husband laugh, and he pulled her close to him for an embrace. They stayed that way for a long while, and Rhoswen closed her eyes, smelling the sweat on Boromir's court clothes against the pleasant herbal milieu of the garden on her own.
"I didn't ask about your day," Boromir said finally, a little guiltily, his voice muffled against her hair.
"It was uneventful," Rhoswen admitted, glad that she had something she might distract him with. "I pulled weeds. I helped Bergil with his arithmetic. I watched a robin build a nest." She paused. The matter wasn't really settled yet. "I came to help my husband with his problems," she added, picking up one of the stray heraldic renderings from the floor. A white castle, over a divided field of white and blue, surrounded by seven stars – the city of Osgiliath. "What holding has he tried to give you?"
"I may have my pick," Boromir lamented. "Forlong of Lossarnach leaves no sons, the Morthond has no heir without Duilin and Derufin, Dervorin of Ringlo Vale died with only nieces, and they are some ten or twelve years old at most, not fit yet to rule by themselves or marry. And those are only the houses of note, there are a dozen others without lords or masters. Forlong's widow was in court today – she brought me a knife of her husbands' that I had admired when I visited there as a boy." Rhoswen could picture the woman, a little round, jolly lady, much given to merriment and encouraging the tricks of young people, having no children of her own. "She said he wanted to give it to his son. These are men I knew since I was a child, Rhos! They are not my lands to own to, or to claim. It feels like graverobbing."
"Osgiliath has had no lord," Rhoswen said quietly, pointing to the device she'd picked up off the floor.
"They will say Osgiliath is a ruin, and no place for a prince of Gondor," Boromir said bitterly. "They will say the king is ungenerous in his gifts if that is what he gives the Steward's eldest son. And I cannot have that."
"It was once a great city, and can be so again. It was the gateway to Gondor. What better watchtower for you to keep your king safe? What better way to show your quality, your loyalty, than by building up the city's defenses? Ask for Osgiliath, before the rest of the court. It keeps you near enough to the king to keep his councils, gives you your own power and income to support it, and shows your loyalty to the king, and leave Gondor richer for both. It will be your greatest achievement." Besides, Osgiliath was where I realized just how much I loved you, she wanted to say, remembering a hard camp bed and watching her betrothed sleep on the floor so that they did not have to share, and the next morning watching him ride away, and realizing he might not return. Let me share that story with our children there. Let us reclaim that place from the orcs, and the sad memories of your father.
"And would you be happy, in a city of stone?"
"You may build me a house there, where our children can play. A place of light, and beauty, and music. And so it will be once more." Rhoswen smiled. "You said that, when you retook Osgiliath. Let us make it true."
"You and I remember Osgiliath very differently, it seems."
No," Rhoswen shook her head. "I remember just as much as you do." Gaping wounds, and the smell of unkept stone, and the sighs of wounded men that no one wanted me to see. Your father wanted to make you into a prince among men, and every storyteller thinks that victories must be bright, shining things without the stain of suffering in them. No clever, beautiful story can blot it all out. I remember the gleam in your father's eyes when he ordered no bed be laid for me, and a quickly hidden cot in your quarters, and a cold summer morning when you left me with your brother for a place I could not find on any map. But she did not say any of this, not wanting to upset him further. "I remember my betrothed did not wish to burden me then with affairs of state, thinking I would not be able to take the weight." She considered for a moment, and then added, with a gently teasing smile, "And we see now how wrong he was."
"It would be a powerfully long time before you had any gardens, my love, or a house to live in," Boromir said, his eyes fixed again on the map, trying to fill in his memories of the wreck he knew as Osgiliath with houses, streets, workshops, living people, high walls and fair towers. There was a bit of a frown there, too. She'd have to give him something else to think about.
"But think on how well Boromir the Builder will sound when you show your sons all that you've accomplished." Rising from her chair, Rhoswen's eyes gleamed with possibility, her smile soft and wise. She leaned over his shoulders and pulled the map closer, one hand on his shoulder while her other traced the plain around Osgiliath to sketch what was now only a dream. "You will ride around the city with them, showing them which walls the Numenoreans built, and which you supervised, and explain the design of the walls and how they will withstand siege, and they will be able to name for you all the gates, and all the items of trade and commerce that come in by each one, and where each road leads, and what men and women rule there. You will be able to point to our house, just there, with windows on the river, and great terraced gardens. You'll tell them that it is the first such project in our age," Rhoswen promised, leaning lower over his shoulder to bring her face closer to his, "And then, when you come home, and they tell me all about the wonderful things you showed them, I'll tell them all about how their mother had to talk you into all of it."
Boromir, under the storyteller's spell, had relaxed a little, though at the last line, with Rhoswen's sharp little fillip on it, the spell broke and he looked at his wife with a little bit of playful anguish in his eyes. "And they'll laugh at you, but love you even more," she promised, kissing his cheek. "I wouldn't let them do otherwise."
Her husband smiled again and seemed, finally, to be at rest about the matter. "Osgiliath it is, then. A citadel of stars for my White Rose." He moved the pebbles off his map, leaving the largest stone centered on the little ink tower on the river. "It will keep me so busy I will have no time for other men's plans."
"Exactly," Rhoswen agreed, giving him another kiss for his pains, and abandoning her own chair for the warm refuge of Boromir's lap. "We'll ask the dwarves for masons and engineers," she said, pulling the map a little closer. "They'll know how best to build along the river so that we lose no foundations at the first summer rains."
"Am I building this city or are you?" her husband asked with mock indignation, lightly slapping her leg and getting a slap back for his troubles.
"We both are," she compromised. But she could see now that the wheels of his mind had finally gotten all the grease they needed. Behind his eyes she could almost see them moving, building up towers, winches and hoists that would bring up roofs and balconies and all the delicate, traceworked archways his stonecarvers could design, and flat plains of stone that could be filled in with soil and growing things, green lawns and hedgerows, and trellises of vines. Elendil and his sons had fled from Numenor, and their craftsmen had been men who took all their ideas from their lost homeland. The new Osgiliath would be a city built from the ideas of this side of the sea. Truly a city for the coming age of men.
"They'll need a banner to work under," Boromir said, and Rhoswen couldn't decide whether it was still fear in his voice or ordinary thoughtfulness. "He said the white banner of the stewards was a thing that belonged to the past."
"And what did you say?"
"I never liked the white standard of the Stewards," Boromir confessed, as though the thought gave him pain. "It was a sign of humility, that the deeds we did were not to our glory, but the glory of the King. Now that it comes to it, I do not know if I want to leave humility behind."
So that was the morning's other matter, and the reason for all the cartoons from the Herald's offices. Boromir pulled a few towards him, clearly the few that had caught his interest. No lions or dragons here, no symbols of potent power or grand display. Keys, horns, watchtowers. All symbols of service, of ready watch or willing loyalty.
And then there was the field of arrows.
Rhoswen's heart clenched as she pulled this offering out of the pile. Four bloodied arrowheads, pointing inward towards a white tower. Four arrows that, save for some small twist of fate, had nearly taken him away from her.
"I think that one speaks truest." Boromir's tone was quiet and sincere.
And it did. The message was plain as day – My blood runs for Gondor. A gruesome charge for any shield – it would strike fear into her heart every time she saw it. She knew some families wore badges that commemorated old victories, but this was too much. You want my sons to wear this? You want my daughters to be married under it? Holding the paper, Rhoswen's hands were cold.
"Not this, my love. Anything but this."
"What else, if not that?" Boromir pointed with muted disgust at some of the other offerings – eagles, for leadership, the white staff of the stewards crossed with a sword, a boar's head with gleaming teeth, a field of golden bees. The heralds were trying to be clever with those last two, using the letter B of Boromir's name to decide the charge. But Rhoswen had a better idea.
"A bear," she said decidedly.
"A bear?" He almost laughed to say it. "I have not been anyone's bear in a long time. A childhood nickname, nothing more."
"Your mother chose her names better than most. The Bear is a noble beast," Rhoswen went on doggedly. "It is slow to anger, but quick to strike. Loyal to its family, industrious in its season, strong and stubborn towards its own ends and cunning in the gain in of them, protective of its due rewards. We might draw it upright – rampant, that's the word - against a black field, as the tree is. Claws out, ready to fight. Looking out of the charge, perhaps – challenging us."
Boromir had turned stony again, as he did when he wanted to speak but wouldn't, and it was making her angry. Why did he shut her out like this? All the lovely pictures she'd dreamed up for him earlier had fled, and her seat on his lap did not hold the same comforts. Well, if he could be stone, she could be just as unyielding. "A Bear is good with brambles, too," she threatened lightly.
Let him think on that a while. But all the practiced lightness in her voice wouldn't help her shut the door without slamming it as she went to eat dinner alone, sitting down at Maireth's perfectly set table only to realize she'd lost her appetite. She looked at the empty chair opposite her, at the gleaming plates and the closed door, and realized it was the first time, really, that they'd quarreled since they'd been married. And over something as stupid and silly as the charge on a shield.
But it wasn't just that. It was that Boromir wanted to be a man going into the future of his country while staying in the past at the same time. It was that he wanted that charge, that charge of all others, because he felt he still needed a penance for a sin that had already been forgiven. It was his indecisiveness. She hated that quality in others, almost as much as she hated it in herself. I can help him do so many things, if he would but let me do them – and let himself leave other things aside.
The room was silent except for the wind at an open window, keening a little through the open glazing. The part of her heart that was weak and girlish wanted to go and apologize, to have him take her in his arms again and feel warm and safe instead of cold and alone, to tell him he could keep the arrows if it would make him happy and there would be smiles between them again. It was childish and petulant to have slammed the door like that, and she wasn't a child. But another part, the warrior in her that so seldom came out, told her to stand her ground on this. It was her family, too, her children who would carry this into the next generation, and she would not stand for it. She'd bend in the direction of the wind for many things, but on this she'd stand her ground.
Maireth and the servants had tactfully left when they saw their mistress's blazing eyes, leaving her to watch the candles burn lower in front of empty plates and a darkening room.
Eventually the door opened, and Boromir emerged – rumpled, pale, a little haggard. In the shadows of the doorway, he spoke.
"Will every argument be like this?" He sounded tired, immeasurably stretched.
"I expect many will be worse," Rhoswen returned levelly, meaning every word. Boromir nodded.
"I suppose you're right." For a while there was silence. "This isn't…just about the shield, is it?" Rhoswen shook her head. For a while, Boromir considered this, still standing in the shadow, as if afraid to come closer to her. "I want to be the man you think I am, or was once. I'm just…not sure of myself anymore. I don't want to hurt you. I'm not one of your heroes fresh out of a song."
"If I wanted one of those men, I'd go and find him. You're still the captain of the city I fell in love with on my first trip to the White City. You just … don't see it some days."
Boromir considered this with a slim smile. "Who told you about Fox and Bear?"
"Your aunt Ivriniel. I liked those stories. She remembered quite a few of them. They were clever, and sweet. They had a purpose." Rhoswen smiled at little at the memory of Ivirinel entertaining both her and Lottie with a lot of old children's stories. "I saw you in them, the man you would become. Your courage, your loyalty, your willingness to serve others, it was all there. Your mother was a wise, wise woman, and you have so little in your life you can call hers."
"I like the bear," Boromir finally admitted. "It's only that…it seems so presumptuous, to say 'I am the start of a new house, here is my banner and here will I rule.' I wonder how Elendil felt when he told his sons their emblem would be the White Tree. The stories never say what other options he considered, or how he struggled with them. Or how his sons took it."
"I'm sure he lost some sleep over it. We'll tell our stories differently, too."
Boromir nodded, finally taking a step towards the table. He opened his mouth to say something else, and then decided against it. "I'm not very hungry," he admitted.
"Neither am I."
The steward took his place at the dinner table anyway, contemplating his wife across the empty plates. She looked tired, sitting there in her chair with the slightest of un-ladylike slumps in her shoulders. Her eyes met his as he pulled his chair up to the table, and for a brief moment, she smiled. The candles seemed a little brighter. That woman loves me, Boromir thought to himself, and he returned the smile. What a bear she too can be. Stubborn, loyal, patient – they're all words for Rhoswen, too. The bear really was growing on him – it was an ideal, something to aspire to. An image for greatness. That's what his mother's stories had been, at least the ones he could remember, which wasn't very many at all. He remembered the stories about Bear being nice to Fox and getting him out of all sorts of trouble. Being bigger, you must always help your brother. And the bear could be a tumbling menace, too, which was all he seemed to be able to manage today, he thought to himself ruefully. There were a few stories where Fox got Bear out of trouble as well.
"Anything else we should smash our way through today?" Rhoswen's voice cut through his reverie.
"No," Boromir said. "I'm done smashing if you are."
"Good." Rhoswen rose from her chair, blowing out the candle closest to her, and lighting a smaller taper from the second table-light before she blew it out. "We should probably go to bed, then. Busy day tomorrow. Kingdom to rule, arguments to make."
Boromir nodded. "I'll come in a moment," he said, letting the darkness settle around him like a quilt. Tomorrow's court proceedings would probably be very much like today's – the council would dither about accepting Aragorn's plans, revenues would be reviewed, more petitions for land grants and titles and market fees would be filed and reviewed.
The days were finally falling into a kind of rhythm, a set of predictable events to draw against, a little time for gardens, a little time for friends and poetry, and most of his time for planning battlements and taking stock of the cellars and listening to the thousand little complaints that a city's people are heir to. There was trade and traffic on the roads of Gondor that had not been seen in years – dwarves coming down from the northern Kingdoms of Dain, joined by horse traders and farmers from the Eastfolds of Rohan. The city's hostels were full, their alehouses doing brisk business, and their goods from abroad in plentiful supply. Éomer was expected to return soon for the body of his uncle, still lying in state in the cool eaves of the Houses of the Dead among the former kings of Gondor.
Perhaps tomorrow would be a good day to remove themselves from it all – take a ride into the country or something similar. The council's reservations about Aragorn could be put off a day, at least. Aragorn was starting to look a little worn around the edges – a condition to be expected for a man taken from a world where his time is all his own and placed into a city where his entire life was dictated to him by tradition and rules.
Yes, tomorrow they would go riding. Along the river and into Lossarnach, perhaps. Rhoswen might get them some kind of cold luncheon and they'd spend the day away from dusty cabinet rooms remembering what they were protecting, or saving, or whatever ruling could be called. We'll speak more then about the heraldry business, Boromir decided. We'll leave it for tomorrow.
often i am permitted to return to a meadow
as if it were a scene made-up by the mind,
that is not mine, but is a made place,
that is mine, it is so near to the heart,
an eternal pasture folded in all thought
so that there is a hall therein
that is a made place, created by light
wherefrom the shadows that are forms fall.
-Robert Duncan
Boromir looked across the broad plain leading south and sighed in contentment. Here was where he belonged – a place that was not a palace council chamber filled with intrigue and the many-changing minds of men. Here the world was predictable and quiet.
Quiet, until one of the squires in the King's necessarily long train took up a coughing fit, his nose obviously taking umbrage at some variety of grass in the vicinity. Boromir turned to look behind with a irritable glare, and the unfortunate youth tried as best he could to stifle his coughing, glancing surreptitiously at his lord with apologetic eyes.
Boromir's gaze met his King's, and Aragorn smiled half-heartedly. It had been a beautiful idea, taking a ride to rid themselves of the trappings of the city and a release from some of their present problems. "All the privacy a monarch can muster, I suppose," he observed, glancing behind him at the attending two dozen squires, pages, and grooms. They'd managed to leave a great deal of Aragorn's official train back in Minas Tirith, but it seemed that the King of Gondor couldn't just go for a ride with his steward without bringing a small army with him. One saw the logic in it, but one still didn't like riding with the equivalent of a thundering herd behind.
Especially when some of the thundering herd couldn't even keep up the pretense of being silent. The coughing started afresh, and Boromir rolled his eyes and silently cursed before wheeling his mount around and placing himself between the anxious troop of retainers and the king.
"A little space, gentlemen, if you please!" he snapped, turning back around to join Aragorn as he walked his mount forward. "We'll see how long that lasts," he observed with an aggravated glace behind him, where the troop was talking nervously amongst themselves, probably debating how much leash it was proper to give the King and the Steward.
"Give them a little credit," Aragorn encouraged. "Their fathers can't school them on how closely to ride with the King."
"I suppose you're right. But I won't apologize." He turned his attention to the countryside around them, still trying to put a little distance between them and the royal retainers.
"So this is what a country at peace looks like." Aragorn's eyes followed the lines of the fields where they started turning into hedgerows and farmplots far in the distance, their laborers little figures.
"Not much different than a country at war," Boromir replied. "These fields haven't changed much since my brother and I used to ride here as children. When I was a squire I'd steal him from his tutors and take him out here for the fresh air. I was convinced he'd never come outside otherwise – never really understood why he'd prefer books to being in the open air. He'd tell me all about the grand things he'd do when he was grown up and we had peace."
"Do you remember what they were?"
"If I did I'd tease him for them now. Though I'm sure they haven't changed much either." Boromir shook his head. 'And can we really ever be at peace?" He mused quietly, almost to himself, remembering the sting of his argument with Rhoswen the night before.
"We can try," Aragorn said, strangely resolute and hopeful. "The Rohirrim are our friends, the Dwarves…more ally than friend. We've done our duty and sent out gifts of reconciliation to Harad and the others, and now it falls to them to answer them."
Yes, they had done that, hadn't they? It had taken a long time to find anyone in the city who'd accept the job (and frankly, they'd have been suspicious of anyone too eager for such an errand) but they'd sent their offers of peace on their way eventually, much to the displeasure of the council. "I still say that was unwise," Boromir replied. "You can't fight a man's fathers for generations and expect him to forget it all on a whim."
"But we can try," the King repeated. "The door is open for them, if they want it. This is the age of the King. A time for change."
"Our king, their change," the Steward said realistically. "We'll wait and see," he added, unwilling to crush Aragorn's optimism, knowing that the King knew the realities just as well as he did. Better, probably – he'd spent the last few weeks being continually astonished by how much Aragorn really knew about Gondor and the way things worked. On that no one could fault him.
"Have you thought at all about my offer?" Aragorn asked, the 'Speaking of changes' aside heavily implied.
"Rhoswen and I talked about it last night." The word 'talked' came out with a little more prominence than he meant it to, and Aragorn raised an inquiring eyebrow, remaining silent. Boromir ignored it. "She thinks – and I agree – that Osgiliath would be a suitable choice."
Aragorn turned in his saddle. "A surprising one, too. The council will want your reasons, or they'll think I'm sparing with my gifts."
"I'm a soldier, Aragorn, not a statesman. I know battles and earthworks and commanding men, not the correct form to use when greeting dignitaries. Rebuilding a city's no different than rebuilding a fortress, and they know I've done enough of that. I want to guard the gate, as I've always done. It's that simple, and I'll tell them that, and they'll believe me. That's the man I've always been to them – it will be easy enough for them to wrap their heads around. And if they need convincing, I'll remind them that I'll be here to keep you in line while I excavate rubble," he added jokingly. As if Aragorn needs keeping in line, he thought to himself. But the council were set in their ways – they liked the devils they knew, and they knew the House of Hurin well. The old house of Hurin, anyway. I imagine the new one has some changes coming to them they won't see.
Aragorn kept any further reservations to himself. "I would have thought your wife might have pressed for an inland province – Lossarnach, even."
"Osgiliath was her idea. She knows me too well."
"The mark of a good match, they say. Did she say –"
But what Aragorn was about to ask Boromir never heard, for several of the grooms were coming towards them, waving their arms and shouting for attention, pointing to another rider, bearing down on them from the direction of the city. Both men turned their mounts towards him, struggling to hear what he was saying.
"My lords!" The messenger was still distant, but moving closer, until the riding party could see his horse's flanks were flecked with sweat, the animal's sides moving heavily. The rider, too, looked done in – and well he should, riding from the city with such break-neck speed.
"What news?" Boromir asked, fairly shouting into the wind.
"An outrider from…an outrider from Rohan, my lords." The messenger was struggling to draw breath while his animal did the same. The poor beast looked ready to buckle.
"Yes? What is it?"
"The king of Rohan comes, Majesty. With…with…"
"With what, man, spit it out!" The steward roared, none too patient with any of his lackeys this morning.
"With elves, majesty."
Boromir watched as Aragorn's face lit up, and he let out a wild whoop of joy, much to the surprise of the messenger, who knew enough about kings to know they did not usually act thus. Wheeling his horse around, Aragorn spurred without a second thought towards the city, leaving the rest of the party milling behind him for a moment.
"But what does it mean, my lord?" The messenger asked, watching in wonder as his king pelted back towards Minas Tirith like a man afire.
"His lady comes," Boromir said, happily spurring his horse after his friend. "His blessed lady!"
The joy of it had blinded him. Boromir knew what that was like. All else could wait.