...
~ More Meetings ~
The Captain and his men raced southward across the last stretch, as the winged steeds came at them, swooping down and lifting up again. Not far from the city gate all but one were thrown from their panicked horses. The leader among them turned to help round up the rest.
'There is someone riding up from the direction of the river,' said Beregond to the hobbit. 'Who in the world? That is no armor of Gondor. On a tall golden horse with a gray cloak, like yours - no, your lady companion? But what is she doing beyond the gate? Oh this is terrible!' he exclaimed, before crying out for his captain, Faramir, and running off.
Pippin mustered up his nerve and peered over the walls onto the field. He saw the gray-caped young rider, in a golden-plumed silver helm with short sword shining in the glow of a small shield that gleamed seemingly of its own light, dash up into the fray of scattered and thrown soldiers of the city.
The one man remaining on his horse endured a very close encounter, and then seemed to struggle upon his saddle, nearly giving to a swoon. Immediately the sight of it made Pippin think of Merry's account of his encounter with a Black Rider alone, way back on the streets of Bree after dark.
The tall yellow horse approaching from the east leapt up toward him and turned about. Then the bright little shield raised up high and the great claws scraped at it, and the sword swung toward its feet, but missed its target as the creature backed away again.
For all their bravery the riders upon the ground still seemed no match for the onslaught of the Enemy's highest servants, whose terror was at a fever pitch and felt for many miles around and underneath them. The new rider sheathed the sword and stood up in the stirrups, and then there was a bright little glow in hand as it was held out toward the foes above.
It then seemed to Pippin that the enemies struggled with a curious breeze flowing stiff against the wings of their beasts from below. He couldn't be sure, but after all he had heard about the maiden at the battle at Helm's Deep, he had a notion that his mysterious young companion might have something to do with it. The wind also had the effect of lifting a little the dark cloud settling from above. He watched the Black Riders back away a little, and they seemed to hesitate. But they remained, hovering menacingly over the field before the gate, and he despaired.
The wind slowed, and the leader among the enemies looked to be preparing an attempt to dive at them once more. More shields went up among a few of those riders stranded on the field, when out came Gandalf, waving his glittering staff, and with the stab of his light the Riders in the air at last gave way and their beasts flapped off.
*.*.*
At last there was a moment of calm upon the field, and Elraen dismounted, and removed her helm and stowed her wand and shield as she approached the group.
The Captain went over to Gandalf as his men gathered themselves back up, and soon turned his attention to the curious rider who had suddenly appeared on the field just in time to help thwart the attack, followed by the wizard.
He was silent a moment, seeing closely now that the mysterious stranger was but a very young maiden, rather fair but shorter than most Dunedain. But in such striking armor and attire she looked more like a princeling squire of the Noldor had just stepped out of the Elder Days. "And you must be the Lady Elraen," he said.
She looked at him in surprise, then realized that by now he could have heard of her from any number of sources. "Lord Faramir," she replied with a bow of her head, "the honor is mine."
"Come along now! Let us get inside," urged Gandalf, and they headed up toward the hall of Denethor. Elraen followed silently behind Gandalf and Faramir to the hall of the Steward, again hooded and cloaked to avoid drawing even more attention to herself than she already had. At the Citadel they dismounted, where at the door to the hall Faramir had noticed in surprise the young hobbit Peregrin as they entered. Elraen had stepped aside to stand by the hobbit, but Gandalf bade them both to follow.
Inside Elraen stood by the wizard in his chair, and Pippin wondered at how unweary she looked for such a trial as he saw them all endure out on the field, for the Captain looked so weary Pippin wondered if he was taking ill.
For her part Elraen had been standing quietly as Faramir spoke, gazing at nothing in particular as he spoke on the details of his recent days. When Faramir came to the subject of Frodo she looked up in surprise, and took in the alarmed reactions of Pippin and Gandalf just as the steward did. He was a stern and clever man, and she worried a little over how he would respond. The heated discussion between the Steward and the wizard spun around again. "And you, girl, you had my son's attention," the lord said, suddenly turning to her. "What say you?"
She looked over surprised and confused. Attention? What did he mean by that? Elraen thought back on the journey, remembering the last moment when he handed her the medallion. She was suddenly feeling rather abashed, and wondered if she was blushing.
Faramir was taken off guard. Any choice at all would be a surprise for the brother he remembered, let alone one so young. But thinking back on her display out on the field, it wasn't hard to see why, on the surface at least. For to him she seemed to have the countenance of a king's standard bearer or young squire, even a newly promoted knight, rather than the custom air of a high lady of Gondor, though that was not surprising considering her upbringing in Rohan. And, remembering his father's pressure upon his brother to choose a bride, he also understood that she was now known to be the highest ranking maiden among families of the Southern Kingdom, and only surviving heir of the Royal House there, broken and tangled line though it may be. That would be a less surprising factor in his brother's thoughts on such a subject.
Faramir looked at her, and saw that her expression seemed to show much the same as he felt on the matter. In the moment before she spoke he watched her face carefully, and could see that she was thinking back on her journey with his brother in light of this new observation from their father, and that she now looked back on the memories differently than she had until that point.
"Well, Lord Denethor," Elraen began slowly, feeling a little flustered. She thought back to the Council of Elrond. "From the start Boromir stated his belief that this thing should be used and not hidden or destroyed. The Wise all feared to take it for any reason, but Boromir had no such fear, even when he should have. But, I think he was humbled, in the end."
A silence fell over the room for a long moment. Faramir looked at her curiously, for her words indeed sounded heavy with long years as Frodo had described. However, as she spoke he strangely found himself feeling a bit cheerier and a little less weary for the moment. Something about her fair but grim remarks made him wish to meet the Elves of whom Frodo had spoken. Beneath the surface he could see a humility that lacked ambition, dutiful but thoughtful, which made him think of the prestigious watch guards of the Citadel. She stood by the wizard solemn and grave, yet with a curiously calm and light quality to her manner, as though somehow in her brief past she had been through far worse than the terror and gloom now assaulting the city. He could read in her at least that somewhere in her past were deeds of great worth and valor and sacrifice, but what such things someone so young could have accomplished in so few years walking upon Middle-earth was beyond his guess. An image flashed in his mind of the royals of old Numenor in their splendor and majesty, more so the early kings and queens in their joy and contentment, and how they must have looked on their thrones. The son of the Steward wondered how the heir of Isildur might impress him when he came.
Pippin looked on, following the conversation, and thought about the strange wind on the field to which the young lady seemed to have some connection. He wondered if she could be related to the wizard somehow. 'An absurd idea,' he thought to himself with a shake of his head.
The Steward brushed it off. "Bah! More wizard's words!" he hissed dismissively. He wondered what in this girl had caught his lost son's attention, unless it were only that she reminded his beloved Boromir of his fondness for his younger brother - so alike in mood did they seem. The steward wondered if the girl was right, and if the elder son, had he survived the attack to return, come back as disappointing as these two.
Elraen's shoulders fell and she gazed down at the floor in defeat, and grief for all that had occurred from Rauros Falls to the present moment on her face, and the argument between the two old men continued. Denethor's eyes, full of his willful pride, reminded her very much of the last king of Numenor. She remembered the sight of At-Pharazon before the Fall, before he dared assail the Undying Realm, fearsome he was under the sway of the same Shadow that beset the children of Numenor now, and age and more later. It was enough to nearly make even her young mortal heart misgive her a moment where she stood, princess of the gods though she was beneath, and she held her breath until at last they were all dismissed.
*.*.*
Afterward she caught up to the steward's new heir. "Lord Faramir, would you grant me a moment?"
He paused, "But of course, Lady," he replied, looking at her inquisitively.
"I know you are weary; I promise I will not keep you long. But I have something for you. Your brother handed it to me ere we were parted," she said, reaching into her tunic pocket. She pulled out the pendant on its chain and held it out to him. "Your father would not take it. He seemed to think you would prefer it."
He paused in surprise at the sight of it, and his face softened. He reached out and held it for a long moment. "It was our mother's," he said, barely above a whisper. "An heirloom from her father, a mighty warrior even among the princes of Dol Amroth. I didn't know he carried this." Far deep under his brother's hardened layers of prowess of valiance and might in arms, he realized, had lain hidden a tiny sliver of a gentle heart, and it took crossing paths with this mysterious young maiden to unearth it.
"Boromir was an ambitious and feisty boy," he continued after pausing to gaze at it, "delighting only in stories of war and victory in battle. So while we were still young children our mother would tell stories of the seafaring captains of Gondor who would bring the fight to the men of the far south, and stories of her own father's and his father's adventures in battle. This pendant is a tribute to the parents of Elros, and is the seal of Dol Amroth, where many descendants of Gondor's great captains still live. It is a symbol of the ancestors of Numenor, and of the might and glory of Gondor at the height of its power."
Such a gift at such a moment would have come from a more genuine place than simply ambition for more status and power, Faramir thought to himself. His brother must have indeed been humbled in his last breath, after all, and only by his own hand could he have reached that point. But that his brother did indeed reach such a point of humility and regard for others indicated clearly that he had overcome the curse by which he dishonored himself. Faramir was comforted, for his brother had indeed died well as Gandalf said, and he had at last chosen as his father asked, and chose well.
He stepped forward and lifted it over her head to hang it about her neck. He continued: "You see, he could have given you any number of tokens of the Steward's house to return to us. Nay! He gave this to you, because he wanted you to have it."
Elraen looked up at him speechless, and lifting the medallion gazed down at it in her hand, surprised and touched and her grief renewed. She had found Boromir a fair and valiant man, who, until the end at least, had always behaved honorably. She had pity for the Mortals, and judged not Boromir's misgivings over the decisions of the council, and she had borne his loss heavily.
"May I see it? The sword, that is." he asked, changing the subject, for he perceived that though she regarded his brother as warmly as he did, the affection did not seem to reach further than that.
She gave a sigh and a sad smile and unhooked the sword to hand it to him.
"It has long been anyone's guess what became of this," he said, looking it over in wonder. He pulled it out, and he could tell just by the look of the blade that this was no forgery. And indeed he found a tiny mark imprinted on the metal itself - the shape of a tiny letter "I" in High Elven lettering between what looked like "M" in the common lettering of Men (but was rather a symbol depicting mountains than an initial). The Valley of Imladris. He resheathed it and skimmed the names listed on the scabbard. "The Princess Miriel, of course," he uttered in near a whisper. So there was indeed another that could have asserted a claim after Earnur's death. Gondor had never accepted inheritance of rule to women, he knew well, however Miriel had also married a descendant of the brother of an earlier king. This heir standing before him now was again another daughter, still her claim was better than any he had yet heard of, among the families in the South at least.
"Your ancestors kept it well," he said quietly as he handed it back. "I am greatly curious to meet the other heir, as well."
"Yes," she replied softly, "he is the finest and best of men. He will make a good king."
"And you?" he asked, "you've had no thought for such things."
She smiled. "I am just here to help."
Prince Imrahil was standing nearby, anxious to meet this newcomer himself. He stood not far but respectfully out of earshot, but when he saw the sword come out he approached and looked in as much wonder as Faramir. He introduced himself.
"I remember rumor of your father at least," he said to her, "who would have been but a young man at the time. And I do remember some encounters with the mixed peoples of South Ithilien and South Gondor, who for the most part have since been wiped away, slain or scattered or enslaved, I'm afraid. And so too were any remainder of your father's family - cousins and other kin slain or lost, so you indeed are the last of the Southern House. So your foster father's fears were understandable, but may have been excessive, I think," he said to her. "I believe you would have had refuge here, or at least in my fair castle. But, any possible heirs to the royal lines were clearly quite vulnerable in territory as contested as the region around Pelargir. Lord Artamir seems to have done well in any case."
The lost heiress wondered how things might have turned out had she been raised among kin in Gondor. She supposed everything turned out as it was meant to, and turned in to her room for the night.
*.*.*
In the morning after the Council meeting Gandalf came to her door again and asked her to follow Faramir to Osgiliath and keep watch over him and his forces there. "For we need only to keep the enemy distracted as long as possible, and for that we need not waste very many lives," said Gandalf.
Though she found the Steward's new heir worthy of protection she still wondered if the wizard could simply think of no other way to make use of her. (In truth the wizard did have reason to send her out again, and not for Faramir only, who bore qualities of wisdom and leadership he found so rare in mortal Men that he felt it very important to preserve such mortals when he found them, as well as he could manage. But also because, like Saruman had before him, he calculated that she could help provide a useful distraction to the great Eye and his servants - especially now that Aragorn had drawn the Enemy's attention out to search for him and attack - as both Frodo and the forces of free peoples made their ways across the gameboard of this war.)
For her part, she remembered other such requests through the ages from the Lord of the Waters, and the King himself - Lord of the Winds, and the Queen of Light, and others, and remembered these were such tasks that had defined her long history. Taking her elf horse from the stables once more she exited the gate again just before it shut.
"I have another errand," she said to the guards who had stopped her as the last of the captain's troops were shrinking from view in the distance. "Mithrandir believes I may be of some help, and indeed I may." This time they gave no further pushback, for they had seen her display beyond the gate the previous day. They knew now that she had a strange connection to the wizard, and possessed powers like to his, and that they need have no fear for her safety. And with that she dashed away toward the river.