The Lord Beren was laid to rest in the House of the Stewards, a vast shadowy hall adorned with statues and inscriptions and filled with row upon row of dead, laid out on couches of stone. The mourners stood with bowed heads in a circle around Beren's bier, lit by banks of flickering candles with the scent of embalmer's spices strong in their nostrils: The Steward and his family, wife and daughters draped in long veils. Representatives from the other Ancient Houses there to do honor to the deceased and his kin. And Aragorn and Barahir in their Rohirric trappings.
Listening to the familiar Quenya words intoned by The Lord Steward, Barahir wondered where their Southern Kin had gotten this custom of embalming the dead and laying them in massive, ornate family tombs. Long ago, in Numenor, interment in rock cut tombs had been the common practice. In the North the Exiles had adopted the Runedain (1) custom of barrow burial and held to it as long as the Kingdom lasted. Now Rangers were laid to rest in unmarked graves, often where they fell, and memorialized with engraved stones or statues set up in small, private hallows.
The brief ceremony came to an end and the mourners reformed their procession to follow Ecthelion, his widowed daughter on his arm, out onto the Silent Street. The Steward kissed Emeldir gravely on the brow and gave her over to the care of her brother, then as the rest of the mourners headed up the Rath Dinen towards the winding path back to the circles of the living, he beckoned to the two captains.
"As you are interested in the history of Gondor, Captain Elfwine, there is something here I would like you to see."
Aragorn and Barahir exchanged furtive glances but obediently followed the Steward to the largest and most ornate of the great tombs, its facade adorned with the stars and tree and crowned statues of kings.
Ecthelion produced a key to unlock the great golden doors and pushed them open. Unlike the House of the Stewards the Tomb of the Kings was lit by high thin windows, inset with panes of colored glass. The dim, mysterious light showed rows of still figures, richly robed and bejeweled, laid out on stone biers. But directly in front of the door was a throne, very like that in the Hall of the Kings, with the body of an aged man propped up on it. He was grey bearded and frail, weighed down by a kingly circlet and heavy golden mantle. Clawlike hands rested upon a gleaming, wing crested crown of mithril adorned with gold and jewels of adamant.
Barahir started and felt Aragorn's hand tighten on his arm. Swallowing with a dry throat he said silently to his brother: 'I do not think I approve of this manner of treating the dead.' Aragorn replied with wordless agreement, as shocked as Barahir.
"The King Earnur, last king but one of Gondor." said Ecthelion, aloud. "That is the crown of Anarion he holds, until the king shall come again."
'I might consider letting him keep it even then.' was Aragorn's dry thought.
Barahir winced in agreement. The prospect of wresting Gondor's crown from those fleshless hands was not appealing.
The Steward led them around the throne to a broad table directly behind it upon which lay a long casket of jetty galvorn overlaid by gleaming chasings of mithril and gold and set with the seven and one stars, the white tree, and the cipher of Elendil.
Aragorn and Barahir didn't have to be told what it contained, they knew very well from the lore and traditions of their House. What they did not know was how the body of Elendil, laid to rest by his son in a barrow at the heart of the South Kingdom, came to be in this place.
Ecthelion looked at the two younger Men and saw that they were shaken - though only an eye as discerning as his could have read the signs. "You are right," he told them quietly, "this is the body of Elendil brought from his grave on Amon Anwar by Cirion when Calenardhon was ceeded to the Rohirrim." The Steward moved to the other side of the table drawing the captains' eye to a body laid out beside Elendil's casket.
A Man like enough to them to be near kin, with high forehead and straight nose and slightly hollowed cheeks, robed in the black and silver of the Kings with a star of adamant bound upon his brow. "And this," Ecthelion said quietly, sadly, "is the last of Elendil's line. The last heir of the Kings of Men in Middle Earth."
Two pairs of eyes rose from the dead face to the Steward's, Elfwine's grey as water under clouded skies, Elfstan's dark blue, both wide with shock.
"He first appeared in Gondor the days of the Morgul Wars and fought the Nazgul under Denethor and Boromir." Ecthelion continued. "But when those wars were ended he left us. Only to return long years later to stand beside Cirion at the field of Celebrant, and to fall there. He came to us out of the North, we never knew his true name. Perhaps you do?"
"He was Arminas," Elfwine said huskily after a long moment, "Minastar in the High Tongue." (2)
"Thank you." said Ecthelion. "It is good to finally be able to give him the honor of his royal name." he looked at them steadily. "And I thought it might comfort your people to know he lies in due honor beside his fathers."
--
"So Arminas was right, Boromir did guess his secret." Barahir said quietly as two rather shaken young princes made their way down the long circles of the city to their lodging outside its gates. Cloaked and hooded against recognition by folk in the street.
"And doubtless passed on his suspicions to his son, Cirion." Aragorn agreed pensively. "This explains a great deal. If the Gondorim think the line of the Kings is extinct, it's no wonder they failed to recognize us as Isildurioni."
"But then who or what do they take us for?" his brother demanded. "Descendants of the Northern Dunedain and Elves of Lindon I would guess." Aragorn smiled wryly. "A reasonable enough conclusion given the little they know of the fate of our people in the North. And from our point of view, a very fortunate mistake indeed."
--
NOTES:
1. Runedain 'Men of the East' is the name given to those Men of Eriador descended, like the Dunedain of Numenor, from the Three Houses of the Fathers of Men.
2. Arminas was the elder son of Arahad I, the seventh Chieftain of the Dunedain. So the Gondorim were right in identifying him as the Heir of Elendil. But very wrong in assuming he was the last. Arminas had a younger brother who succeeded their father and carried on the Line of Isildur.