XIV

After a week or so at my uncle's home, I judged that the time had come to return to my own house. He was not taken with the idea, and asked me to reconsider, at least until he left the city. But I knew I could not shelter behind him indefinitely, and he would soon be returning to the coast, and so I was adamant.

As was to be expected, the house was very quiet inside. She had left behind many of her own and the children's possessions in her haste to depart, and these sat uneasily about the rooms. Going into her sitting room I saw that the cabinet had been discreetly mended, and suspected my uncle's involvement here and, although I was grateful to him, still I had it removed. I had never much cared for it, and even less now. On the desk in my study my ring was waiting for me accusingly, lurking to one side of the books I had abandoned more than a week ago. I hid it away at the back of a drawer.

They were discouraging surroundings, and I felt better in the White Tower, where there was plenty to do in preparation for the King's imminent arrival. Whatever he might have to say to me about the state of our alliance with Rohan, he would, I was determined, have no other source of complaint. So I sat one morning putting some rather fretful final touches to the last report I needed to prepare before his arrival that afternoon. As I wrote, I heard someone enter and come to stand before my desk - it was about the time messages generally arrived, and there was usually something that required an immediate decision.

'If you just give me one more moment,' I murmured, without looking up, my full concentration on the task at hand, 'Then I can promise you will have my complete and undivided attention...'

There was a slight pause as I carried on scribbling; then, 'When you are ready, Faramir,' said the King.

This was not, perhaps, the start for our interview which I would have wished. I set down my pen, looked up at his impassive face, and got to my feet. 'My lord,' I said apologetically. 'Welcome home,' I added, a little lamely.

He nodded in acknowledgement, and then gestured towards the door. 'Shall we go and talk about... how the year has passed in Gondor?'

I grabbed the pile of documents I had made ready for his return, sliding the near finished one to the bottom, and followed him out of the door. We spent an hour or two talking through the papers, and he asked questions, checked facts, and mostly nodded or murmured in agreement. I felt a cautious hope rising in me that I might leave the room alive.

At last, however, he sat back in his chair, folded his arms, and appraised me very gravely with his grey eyes. I clasped my hands together, and tried to keep looking back. He had always had more than a passing resemblance to my father, which had no doubt influenced my decision to delay telling him about my illness, but his sternness now made the likeness unmistakeable. It did not help my unease.

'I believe,' he said eventually, 'that neither the King of Rohan nor I expected to return from securing our interests in the east to find our own ties in tatters.'

I closed my eyes very briefly, to get at least a moment's respite from his own unremitting gaze.

'And I fear,' he continued, 'that while I do not make a habit of requesting my counsellors to account for their domestic arrangements, on this occasion I require  from you an explanation of what has occurred between you and the Lady of Emyn Arnen.'

I sat wondering where to begin.

'Did you strike her, Faramir?'

I looked at him, startled. 'Indeed, no! Has she said that?'

'I have not brought you in here so that I can carry tales, Lord Faramir,' he said, and now his tone was very grim. The similarity to my father was now overwhelming, and I could feel myself quaking under the weight of his displeasure, and strove to control myself.

'Your pardon,' I said at length in a more measured tone. 'That was ill said of me.'

'Yes it was.'

I reined myself in further and attempted an explanation. 'We argued... she tried to strike me... I blocked her arm, and in so doing I cut her wrist with my ring. And then she left for Rohan.'

He sat looking at me with that stare that could pierce through stone. After a moment I could not look back at him.

'I see.' He stretched in his chair. 'Your wife, for the record, was extremely circumspect. She spoke briefly to her brother and to me, and then has been in conference with his wife your cousin since her arrival. And that was the case when I departed.'

I did not dare answer.

'We shall not speak of this matter again.' He sat up in his chair, put his hands out flat on the papers I had given to him, and looked down at them. I sat and waited. Then he gazed at me once more.

'I hear from the Queen that you were ill at the start of the year.'

I had put a great deal of effort into avoiding the Queen at that time, and I had not known she knew, although given how thin I went, it should not have come as a surprise to me that she had.

'Yes, a little.'

'Rather more than a little, from what she tells me.'

I was not sure where this could be leading, so I kept quiet and looked at the floor with no small amount of trepidation.

'Which makes your execution of your office across those months all the more impressive, I think,' he concluded. And then he stood up, and so did I. 'I knew that I could rely on you, Faramir,' he said, and there was warmth now in his voice. 'Thank you for all that you have done in my absence.'

I bowed; and, as I made my way out, feeling extremely relieved still to be standing and walking, he spoke again and I turned to face him, and I thought that I caught a note of regret in his voice.

'I did not intend for your stewardship to cost you your marriage,' he said, drumming the desk with the fingers of one hand.

I rubbed my face. 'I do not believe that that was what happened,' I said at last softly. 

'Well,' he said, as if not entirely agreeing; then he continued, 'Your pardon. I said that we would not speak of this again.' Then he gave me a wry smile. 'The Queen asks that you join us for dinner tomorrow evening.'

I dropped my head to smile in my turn, since it appeared people still did not want me out of their sight. My uncle seemed to show up at my home at some point each evening. I did not much mind.

'Thank you,' I said. 'That would be very welcome.'

And indeed it was. My uncle joined us, and we ate extremely well, and the Queen was as ever very dry and very witty, and the King kept refilling my glass, and as the evening wore on I felt very relaxed, more than I had done in months.

In time, however, the Queen addressed me, as I had been expecting.

'Now that we have bribed you with a large quantity of very superior wine, Faramir, perhaps you might be persuaded to speak to me a little about your wife?' And she looked at me with kindness.

I heaved a deep sigh. 'I rather thought we might come to this subject at some point in the evening. Perhaps if I offered here one of my justly celebrated summaries we could consider it closed and move onto more pleasant matters?' I started to count off on my fingers. 'Point the first: I am an idiot. Point the second: I am getting exactly what I deserve. Point the third...' I stopped and frowned. 'No, I believe that covers everything,' I said, and laughed a little, and my uncle laughed and the King smiled.

But the Queen was not satisfied. 'My lord Faramir,' she began, shaking her head, but I very politely cut her short.

'My lady, I have found in the past week or so that if I dwell at length on this matter, I am inexplicably reduced to tears. You would not have me so before the King, surely?'

She raised her hands in defeat. 'What then would you rather talk about?'

I swung back in my chair, and took a deep breath. 'I would like to hear more about the east. I never got there. What is it like?'

So my uncle and the King spoke more about what they had seen; but when I began obligingly correcting their use of the local dialect, they refused to continue on account of the fact that I manifestly knew already more about the land and the people than they, despite their year's first-hand experience, could possibly tell me. I conceded their point, but felt bound to say that it seemed wasteful to spend so much time away and come home with so little to show for it. It was customary at such a point in our squabbling for someone to remark about my lack of skill in Rohirric, but this time it went unsaid; and I was glad, for I had begun to wonder whether I should have seen from the outset the extent to which I misunderstood my wife.

I could only count myself very fortunate in the people I had around me. And at the end of the evening, when my uncle and I disappeared off half-cut into the night, he steered me down to his own home, guessing correctly that after such good company, I could not quite bring myself to listen instead to the sighs and silences of the Steward's house. But I returned there the following day, and a week or so later, my uncle went home to Dol Amroth.

As the year turned from autumn to winter, I would stand in the bay window of my study and I watched as the trees in my garden faded from golden brown to emptiness. And I became very sad.

The house did not help my mood. For it seemed that everywhere I turned, I was beset by memories, and none brought me solace. Walking along the landing on the second floor, past what had been the children's nursery, brought home only that I had lost them. A recollection of Boromir and me tussling in the main hallway, happy that father was out, recalled only to me that my brother too had gone. And everywhere, her touch had graced the house, brought life to it, even though she had been unhappy here; even though I had made her unhappy here.

And, sometimes, I would find myself unsettled by a bad memory, almost like the thoughts of battle I would experience; much less vivid, but overpowering nonetheless. I would perhaps reach to open a door and, on touching the handle, I would remember how it had felt against the side of my head, and hear again the sound of my father's voice. And this would jolt me, and leave me shaky and unsteady.

I understood now why I had chosen the room I had as my study, for it had been my mother's sitting room, and he had hardly ever entered there when she was alive, and he had closed the door on it when she had died. There was little there to unnerve me. And so, when I was in the house, I retreated into that room, since although the year was ending, it still caught what pale sunlight there was, and I had filled it with things that I liked, and it was very peaceful. But late one evening, I stood up from my chair to go to bed, and I thought suddenly of Éowyn and of my children, and how much I loved them and missed them, and that they were gone, and I was overcome with grief even in this haven. I leant my forehead against the wall, and I wept.

It took a long time to sleep that night, but the next morning was a new day, and I sat up and leaned on the window sill and, looking out into the garden, I saw that spring was coming. And I tried to think of what I might do, for I was weary of being unhappy and I longed for some peace of mind. 

It was plain to me that Éowyn was gone for good, and I did not expect or deserve otherwise. It was also plain that any attempt to communicate was her privilege and the first move would need to come from her. I could not force myself upon her. This recognition was very painful, in particular when I thought of how much my children would be changing and that I was not there to see them, but I had brought myself to this pass, and now must face the consequences. I could not change it, only bear it.

The house was a trial for me. I had no doubt that my uncle would have let me move into his home had I asked, but I was determined to resolve this matter. I could not, I thought, spend my whole life being jarred by the memories that lay within the place. I had lived here alone for some time directly after becoming Steward and, again, on my return from Edoras and before my marriage, and it had not caused me any anxiety; indeed, I had enjoyed being master of my own home, and ordering it in the way that I wanted. I perceived that my trouble was less with the house itself than with my recent admission of what had happened to me here as a boy. I considered returning to Ithilien, but how could I bear Emyn Arnen without her? So I stayed, and I set my mind to mastering this and, once again, I gave instructions to shift furniture and to paint walls.

I continued dealing with much of the day-to-day business of the kingdom. I do not think this was much of a loss to the King and it certainly filled my time. And I enjoyed it and, thanks to my staff, I was good at it, and it gave me a sense of achievement which I thought was probably foolish to deny myself if I wished to regain some contentment. For above all I tried to keep at the forefront of my mind that should I ever see my children again, I would want them to meet a father that was well and close to happy, and thus able to love them and care for them, and not a man such as my own father that had become stern and embittered.

One morning in the middle of February, I had opened the windows wide in my study, for the air was fresh and clean; and I sat in my chair with my feet on the desk, reading again about Beren and Lúthien, for tales of love that conquered even death were beautiful, even if I no longer believed them.

Then I heard the door open and someone was brought in. Looking up, I saw it was the Queen.

'Reading again, Lord Faramir?' she asked. 'Why not walk with me for a while instead? It is some time now since I have looked upon your lovely gardens.'

And so we walked together for a little while, and we fell to talking about Éowyn, and she asked me why I had not yet been to see her.

'In truth, my lady - I have no great desire to come face to face with the King of Rohan. I believe I might not survive the encounter.'

She looked at me sternly.

'She has not sent for me,' I said, perhaps a little defensively, and I was confused, for surely after all I had done to her, it could only be for Éowyn's to decide whether I should be permitted near her?

'And have you thought that Éowyn might instead prefer a gesture from you?'

I had to admit that I had not.

'Surely you miss her greatly?'

My heart wrenched in my chest. 'I miss her... painfully. But, we seem to have done naught but tear at each other. Too literally, in my case,' I added very sadly, and then I gave her a rueful smile. 'I have come to the conclusion that I know very little about women!'

She threw back her head and laughed. 'All that poetry, and so little to show for it! It is a terrible shame! I think you may find,' she said more seriously, 'That we are not such mysterious creatures as you imagine.' She pressed my arm. 'Éowyn loves, and Éowyn grieves, as much as you do. This is not, surely, so difficult to understand?' She stopped walking and turned to face me, and took hold of both my hands. 'Sometimes, I believe, you think too much, Lord Faramir.'

'This has been said to me before.'

'Then stop thinking. Go to Rohan, and speak to your wife. And listen to her.'

After she had departed, I returned to my study, and put aside my books, and I wrote to my wife. These days I spent much of my time writing, rewriting, and perfecting documents, but I have never composed anything so hard in my life. Ten pages became five, and five became two, and, at length, I was left with only a few lines, that hoped she and our children were in the best of health, and that she would allow me to come to Edoras to offer my apology in person.

Late one afternoon at the end of February, I came out from the meeting of the council and stood on the steps of the White Tower, and I looked down the court towards the fountain and the Tree, and on past the Rammas to the river, a silver line on the horizon, Ithilien beyond. The sky was pale blue and cloudless, and the air fresh, and I breathed in the scent of the new flowers, and then I caught a sudden sharp tang in the air, and turned. The King stood beside me, lighting his pipe.

He nodded back into the Tower. 'Was that a flash of humour I detected in there?'

I returned his smile. 'Each week, my lord,' I said, by way of explanation, 'I receive a letter from my uncle. And each week it begins in the same way - with an enquiry after my health, and then an order to stop brooding. My uncle's advice has never yet turned out to be bad - whether or not I have been wise enough to pay it any attention.'

He laughed very quietly.

I sighed, drawing in the soft scent of the flowers, laced now with the pungency of the smoke. 'I leave for Rohan at the end of the week,' I said, for I had received a response from my wife that morning, a letter even shorter than the one I had sent, which simply gave me permission for a visit.

'At last,' he muttered.

I turned to look at him sharply, and he raised an eyebrow. 'And do you journey there in hope?' he continued.

'I hope to see that she and my children are well. Nothing more.'

'And what do you hope from your brother-in-law?'

I looked towards Ithilien again unhappily. 'You know him better than I,' I said. 'And saw him when she arrived. Have you any advice for me?'

He chewed thoughtfully on his pipe for a few moments.

'Duck,' he said.