A/N: This one's a long one, but I wanted to get the story finished. Any suggestions are still welcome, as I haven't really drafted this properly. All dialogue in the dream sequence is taken from tFoTR, as is a few bits later on. If you recognise it, I didn't write it. I'm glad it's finally finished, but I'll miss Boromir… Watch out for the epilogue. Bye now.
- T.
CHAPTER 6: TALES/CHOICES"Why have you come?" Boromir asked suddenly, his eyes on the old man, his voice almost crisp and martial. The man did not look up at him.
"I would not have come if the need was not urgent. I have come to fetch you back, Boromir." Gandalf's voice was gentle, almost sorrowful. "Your land has need of you once more."
His heart thudded dully in his chest, and his fingers tightened convulsively on the arms of his chair.
"Gondor can have no further need of one such as me."
One Week EarlierHe could feel his hands clutching convulsively at the forest floor, fingers sifting reflexively through rotting leaves and soil, tiny insects and pine needles.
He wept bitter tears and angry tears, rage and shame and desire hot within his breast. What had he done? Why had he… He could feel a weight in his hand, a presence. Vision blurred, he brought it to his face, half expecting to see the glint of the Ring. Instead he saw a chip of stone, rough on one side, but cunningly and beautifully worked on the other, worn by the elements and stained by the earth in which it had been cradled, but still recognisable. Boromir sat up and looked at it dully. A fragment of the past, of his forefathers and theirs, in his palm, silent and quiescent. Cold. Lovely but dead and meaningless. He turned it over and over, all the while weeping for his own small death. He had been so wrong. Around him the forest was still, but for a small breeze that stirred the leaves around him and the hair that fell around his face. It was over.
He stood, and passed a hand over his eyes, dashing away the tears. "What have I said?" he cried. "What have I done? Frodo! Frodo!"
Then he was back at the campsite, the others sitting around conversing. He felt invisible, as if he had found the Ring, and was wearing it, coiled around his finger like a cold worm. He did not look at the others, and they did not look up. They went on discussing trivialities as he went to each and stood before them, gesturing and waving.
"I thought he would return to you! I do not know where he is!" he repeated to each, but he was ignored as if he were truly in possession of the Ring. Only one figure appeared to notice him, as he knelt before it, gasping in a sudden unimaginable pain as arows blossomed from his chest.
"Is that all you have to say?" the Uruk Hai chief uttered through grotesquely grinning lips as he drew back his bow string.
"Yes," Boromir answered, calmly awaiting death, "I will say no more yet."
He awoke only when Tamar's cool hand on his brow calmed his tossings and turnings and forced him to consciousness. He lay gasping as she knelt by his pallet and held his hand until he was still.
"Who is Frodo?" she asked, her eyes on his face in the moonlit room. He could not look away, caught as he was by her silvered face in the gloom. The concern on her features calmed him more than her hand in his. He released her fingers and rolled over away from her.
"Just a dream," he muttered, "Not really me at all. A madness took me… but it has passed."
After she had left him, he lay and gazed at a square patch of moonlight on the floor from the window, and whispered "A madness took me, but it has passed."
Now, Gandalf sat before him, grey eyes firmly fixed on his face.
"No futher need of one such as me," Boromir repeated. He felt Tamar come to stand behind him as she handed a steaming mug to the other man. He was grateful for her nearness, and edged back in his chair to be nearer. And farther from the grey man opposite.
Gandalf sipped his tea and smiled appreciatively at Tamar over Boromir's head.
"You are wrong," he said. "There is need for none but you. You must return with me and take the throne."
Boromir's throat closed over, and the air around him seemed to hiss in his ears.
"Aragorn has… failed… then?" he asked with effort. Gandalf sat back, eyes glimmering for a moment.
"No. He is King in Gondor. The land was won back from Sauron's darkness at great cost, but it was won back. The Ring was destroyed."
Tamar cleared her throat. Both men turned to look at her. She looked Gandalf direct in the eyes without flinching, and Boromir was suddenly very proud of her.
"There are a few things I would like to know," she said, her voice quavering a little. "Who you are, for one, and why you are in my house." She paused. "Also, what the hell you two are talking about."
Gandalf shot Boromir a dark look. "You have not told her then?"
Boromir spread his hands helplessly. "Some. I did not recall my… end… until quite recently, and even then was not willing to believe it as more than a dream." He hung his head, and was silent.
Gandalf looked up at Tamar and raised his eyebrows. "Your friend knows me as Mithrandir among his people. I am called Gandalf the Grey most commonly. And I am in your house on rather urgent business. The fate of all Middle Earth is at stake in this matter," he finished, looking directly at Boromir. "As to what we discuss, perhaps the entire tale is in order, as there will be much of which you are unaware, Lord Boromir." Gandalf sat back and sipped at his tea once more. Tamar glanced at Boromir's grim expression and settled herself beside Chulainn on the hearth rug, within reach of his chair. With another sip, Gandalf spoke.
"It began with a Ring…"
As the grey man spoke, Boromir watched her face especially. Her expression was bland, careless, but one which he was coming to recognise was a mask for deeper meaning. Occasionally she would look away, to rub Chulainn's scruffy ears, or glance up at the rain streaming down the windows as the sky outside began to clear a little. Once or twice she looked up at him, and smiled quickly and tightly before looking back at Gandalf. When Gandalf spoke of his fall in Moria, his voice caught slightly, but he continued.
"You must understand," he said slowly, "much of this is now what has been related to me by those who were still present. Including your fate, sir, and what befell afterwards until I again rejoined the tale. In my understanding, you fled the mines to Lothlorien, there to take counsel with the Lady Galadriel…"
Boromir was siezed by a desire to stand, to walk, to move –
"Maybe it was only a test and she thought to read our thoughts for her own good purpose… she was tempting us… It need not be said that I refused to listen. The Men of Minas Tirith are true to their word."
- and he rose abruptly and paced a few steps away while he listened. Tamar looked at him, but he did not return her stare. Gandalf continued to twist the blades he was driving deep into Boromir with every word, drawing closer to the moment. Then he paused, and looked askance at Boromir where he stood.
"Frodo has not made clear to me exactly what happened that day. Perhaps it is best told by you," Gandalf suggested. Boromir sighed and was silent for a moment.
"I attempted to take the Ring from Frodo. I don't know why I did it. All I wanted to do was to take the Ring and use it to command armies of Men the like have never been seen before to rout Mordor and defeat the Enemy and usher in a golden age… All I wanted to do was good… Perhaps it was true, that the Ring is evil. That it invaded my soul and found out my weaknesses…"
Tamar stirred. "And your strengths. Your wish was true enough," she said softly. Both men looked at her, but her gaze never left Boromir's face. "If all you have said is true, then you were as much a puppet of Fate as Frodo or Aragorn.Your character truly is your destiny, Boromir."
Gandalf made a harrumphing noise and pulled a small clay pipe from inside his voluminous sleeve. Tamar glanced over at his movement.
"Not inside please," she said automatically, then checked herself, and looked carefully at him to guage his reponse. It consisted of a raised eyebrow, a further harrumph and the disappearance of the pipe. Boromir actually felt a smile growing on his lips. He let it take form, lopsided and rueful, but amused. This woman was endlessly impressing and surprising him. She turned to him for his response and returned his smile when she saw it.
"Pippin and Meriandoc told me what happened next," Gandalf said quickly, noting the look exchanged between the two. "I need not relate it, I think." Boromir shook his head in negative reply. Tamar's expression showed that she caught their meaning, and she nodded. Gandalf moved on, and told of what happened in the following months. Boromir regained his seat, and listened attentively, as did Tamar. At one point she rose and returned with a loaf of bread and some cold meat and a bowl of apples which Boromir noted with a grin of appreciation. He felt lighter, almost dizzy. He had told her, actually said it to himself and to her, and she had not flinched away as he would have done. It was as if a light which had been snuffed was rekindled, and he was bathed in its glow. Gandalf continued to talk in tones sometimes low and careful, sometimes rushed and urgent, but he did not take all of it in. Instead he watched her face, and its myriad expressions. It was when Gandalf spoke of Aragorn's arrival in Gondor that he again became fully attentive.
"And my father?" he asked, sliding forward in his seat. "What did he say? And Faramir?"
"Your brother acquitted himself well, fighting bravely and taking grievous wounds in the battle. Aragorn healed his body, and I believe the Lady Eowyn of Rohan took care of the rest." The old man had a glint in his eye as he spoke. "I hear they are quite happy, often feuding and then reconciling." Then his face grew grim and sad. "Your father… did not survive. He chose to end his life, quite siezed by grief …a kind of madness took him at the end."
Boromir felt ill, his stomach churning and his head pounding, his ears ringing, and an aching, metallic tang in his throat. He gasped for a breath, and rose quickly.
"My father took his own life? Impossible! He is the Steward of Gondor… he would not…never…" He allowed a sob to escape his lips, and leaned forward. Tamar remained still and watchful, and he was glad of it, although were he in private he would have wished for her comfort and counsel. His throat felt raw and his skin felt injured and exposed. The air around him seemed heavy and awkward.
"Yet Men live well and happily under Aragorn's rule. Gondor survives and begins to prosper once more," Gandalf said, leaning forward also, in his seat.
"I should have been there, to counsel him," Boromir managed to utter. "My father, my Steward… I should have never left him." Then he swallowed his grief and stood upright, dashing a single angry tear from his face. He regained his seat, and regarded Gandalf passively, the only indicator of his stress the rapid rise and fall of his chest.
"If Men and Gondor live so happily and well now, what use could I have?" he asked, his voice almost bitter in his ears, and certainly bitter on his tongue. Gandalf tilted his head to one side, and pause before answering.
"You must return and take the throne as Aragorn's heir. It was always intended that you should do so, in some form. The Lady Undomiel remains childless and the land grieves for its King and its future. You are here. You are in the wrong place!"
"I am dead," Boromir hissed. "I am in the Afterlife. This is where I should be."
Gandalf shook his head. "No, this is not the Afterlife of Men. Although I am aware that there are others here, they too have been placed here for reasons unknown to me at this time." He sighed, his face growing harder, his tone more resolute. "You are not in the Afterlife. You are in another… another place. You were…."
"Shifted?" Tamar suggested quietly. Gandalf nodded at her.
"Yes. That seems appropriate enough."
"And you say that Boromir must return to this Gondor and take the throne? Isn't there already a King, this Aragorn fellow?" she asked. Boromir raised his face to Gandalf's, his expression interrogatory. Gandalf remained impassive.
"He must return and be born once more into the world." He paused. "And it must be a conscious choice from you, Boromir."
"But wouldn't that… just… happen?" Tamar asked, appearing at a loss. Boromir remained silent.
"Perhaps. It is not even for me to know these things, Lady," Gandalf replied, thoughtfully. "Nonetheless, as Boromir has ended up here, he must make the choice to depart."
The three were silent for a minute, Chulainn breaking the mood by groaning as he shifted in his sleep, his massive grey shoulder coming to rest against Tamar's side. Boromir gazed out of the window at a sky which had cleared before the dusk.
"And if I do not return with you?" he asked. Gandalf looked ponderous.
"Then Gondor will have no heir, and when Elessar eventually passes, it will fall to the wiles of Men to decide upon a course of action. Men have great goodness and courage, but also malice and desire and greed and cowardice. Already angry covetous words have been spoken about Gondor's future. Aragorn's Dunedain blood courses strongly, and he will live for a good many years – but unlike his Lady, he is not among the immortals. He also fears for the future of his city, and his people," Gandalf finished, looking closely at Boromir. Then he rose and produced his pipe from his sleeve once more.
"I trust, Lady, that I may enjoy a pipe on the doorstep?" he asked, his courtesy edged with a tone that made Tamar's skin crawl. He crossed the room and opened the door. The sun was setting outside, the air cold but clear after the storm, and scented with earth smells. He seated himself on a small stool by the back door, and lit his pipe, which flared briefly in the gloom. Boromir sat still, feeling desperation rise and fall in his heart. Tamar came to him and perched for a moment on the arm of his chair, silent. He could not be near her, he could not inhale her scent or feel her warmth on his skin. He rose abruptly and went to the kitchen where he stood leaning against the bench, his face caught in lines of grief and anger, and his stomach tight.
"I have been here but three weeks. I have a lifetime's obligations there. I cannot…" he muttered, his throat tight. Tamar looked at him steadily.
"Why should you go?" she asked. "You said yourself that you were dead, and wished for a quiet life."
He was silent, before gazing away out of the window.
"When I sang that song, earlier, to you, you asked if I had ever sung it to a woman." He paused and swallowed convulsively. "The only woman in my thoughts when I sing that song is Gondor herself. She has been my mistress since I was a babe, my first duty and my first love." He stiffened but did not turn to face her. A heady aroma of tobacco made him turn as Gandalf stood on the threshold and looked at him sternly.
"Then you know the choice that you must make," the older man said plainly. "We have not much time."
Tamar sprang from her seat and stood resolutely.
"Think about this, Boromir! Will you just leave, just like that? You have been an instrument of Fate before with the Ring. Will you allow yourself to be used again?" She shot an almost contemptuous look at Gandalf. "You have a chance to choose your own path now, to choose the quiet life you have wanted… here." She swallowed before she could add "with me".
The wind outside gusted through the door and he shivered in its grave chilled wake. He gave her a long look, taking in her stance and wounded expression. His heart contracted, and he turned away. "I cannot," he said shortly. He heard her sigh. He stood motionless for a long minute, darkly silhouetted against the gathering dusk. His frame was tense and his shoulders hunched beneath the weight of what they had both said. Then, slowly, he reached out and placed both hands on the draining board, clutching at the edge of the sink as if to hold himself in check.
"I am overtaken," he muttered, his voice breaking. Tamar's eyes pricked with mute, sympathetic tears. Gandalf stood impassive, watching, his face unreadable. Boromir hung his head.
"I died and still I wish for it again. I should be a ghost instead am haunted. I am besieged! Armies of ghosts approach on all sides, each unnamed soldier wearing the face of a brother or a father, or a king…
"I am overtaken, and utterly defeated. My walls are breached. The day is lost. I cannot fight more than this… Even in death am I followed by all that I am and should have been. Gandalf, is there anywhere they cannot follow?" He looked up and out at the setting sun. Gandalf stirred.
"And so is it concluded," he stated flatly. "We shall depart."
Tamar moved forward and laid a careful hand on Boromir's where it rested on the sink. After a moment he looked at her. She reached up to put her other hand on his shoulder, and he leaned against her for a moment. Behind them Gandalf harrumphed and went outside to finish his pipe.
"So you're going back?" she asked quietly. He nodded.
"I am. It cannot be avoided, and it must be me. I suppose I am still the Steward's son. It has ever been so." He turned to her, his face peaceful, all trace of anger replaced by resignation and a certain wistfulness.
"Tamar," he murmured. "I would stay with you, in a quiet life."
She nodded. "I know." She leaned in and hugged him tightly, her forehead coming to rest upon his shoulder. After a moment, he returned her embrace and pressed his lips very briefly against the top of her head. His throat closed over with sadness and longing and another brief flare of anger before he pulled away. She nodded again and he could see the glassy reflection of tears in her eyes. He took her hand.
"As the blood of Numenor flows in me," he said quietly and forcefully, "so it flows for Gondor and for you. I am your man and would follow willingly of you but give the word." He pressed her hand to his lips. "I'll find a way to return to you when once more I am free of duty… I am not a man who has loved often, or well, but…. my heart is heavier still." He looked at her for a moment longer, taking in the shadowed planes of her face, then abruptly released her and left her.
She heard a few muttered words between Gandalf and Boromir, and then two sets of footsteps crunching away across the yard.
And then nothing but the sunset sounds of wind in the skeletal apple trees and a far off farm dog howling at the rising, faceless moon.