Part II
Knight of Gondor
The pressure of the man's blade upon Trollsbane was almost more than Pippin could manage. He depended on tricks of positioning and leverage to make up for his lack of size. What that depended on, was movement.
Pippin stepped back with his left foot and lowered his sword. Suddenly off-balance, the man stumbled forward, already cursing. Pippin spun and smacked the flat of his blade onto the man's back, then over the man's head to touch the steel to the man's neck.
Applause. "Wonderfully played, Peregrin," said Faramir, Steward of Gondor. "You have gotten the better of the captain of my guard."
"Indeed, my lord, he has," agreed Beregond on his knees. "Now, would my lord Peregrin be kind enough to spare my life and withdraw his blade …?"
Pippin did so with a chuckle, allowing Beregond to rise. They sheathed their weapons. "It's good to see you well, Beregond!" said Pippin.
"Likewise, my lord."
Even he calls me 'my lord', thought Pippin glumly. I'll never be able to get away from it here.
He heard footsteps behind him and the slither of steel being drawn from a scabbard. A grin curled up his cheeks. "Shall I leave Gondor without a Steward, then?" he jested, turning to face Faramir.
Faramir's eyes were full of mirth though his face seemed grave. "I vow that I shall not give your lady or my lord Meriadoc any cause to grieve for you."
"And what about Sam?"
"Samwise will not mind. Guard yourself!" And Faramir met him with a low pass. Pippin leapt back and parried, flat against flat.
A small crowd of guardsmen and nobles began to leave their own exercises and gather in the drill hall, drawn by the sight of the Steward and the Ernil i Pheriannath duelling with real blades. Pippin felt good: he remembered most of Faramir's methods, and he doubted the Man likewise knew his.
They paused for breath. Their faces gleamed with perspiration as they grinned at each other. Faramir stripped off his tunic and flung it to a guardsman. Pippin did the same. He wore no singlet underneath and the Men remarked in awe at the faded scars upon his chest, stomach and back. As boys during the siege of Gondor they had heard of the valor of the Prince of Halflings before the Black Gate, of his slaying of the stone troll that decimated the selfsame guard to which they now belonged. The halfling had been little more than a boy himself then, a lad who with the Fellowship of the Ring had walked into the light of legend in his own lifetime—a situation heretofore reserved for Elves, whose lifetimes were endless.
Pippin would have pointed out, had he not been otherwise occupied, that killing the troll had been almost lucky. Lucky that he had been too short to be caught by the first swing of the creature's mace. Lucky that he had a sword capable of piercing the gravelly crust of its skin. Lucky he had been too mad and stupid to run. But he did not point that out. He was better now, and he was enjoying himself.
Faramir and Peregrin fought on. The delight on their faces was the only thing that surpassed the deadliness of their strokes. Faramir's sword was long and keen, an heirloom from the days of Cirion. Trollsbane was smaller, but older far.
Pippin noticed Faramir was growing tired. At forty-three Faramir was nearing middle age, Númenórean blood or no. For a moment Pippin felt angry. Everyone was growing old and settling down. If he saw Legolas, would he see age on the immortal face? No. He'd see the Elven equivalent: an unquenchable longing for the Sea. The Sea. The inexorable Sundering Sea!
Faramir's sharp grunt of pain was followed by murmurs of concern from the audience. Pippin drew up short. Blood glinted on Trollsbane's edge.
"Faramir! Oh, dear, I'm so sorry!"
Faramir held his side, but blood seeped between his fingers. "Nay, fear not," he said with a tight smile, "it is not a mortal wound. My own folly for underestimating you. The pupil has surpassed the mentor."
"If you call me 'little one' I shall finish the job, and Strider will have to find a new Steward."
Faramir laughed, then winced. He withdrew his hand and examined the wound. "It is not mortal, but it is deep enough to need a physician's skill," he said. "I shall have to withdraw from the field, Master Peregrin, lest my lady catch me neglecting my health."
"You are too late to avoid that, my lord!"
All heads turned as the Princess Eowyn approached. She paused before her husband, hands on her hips, regarding him critically. "So the Steward of Gondor is bested by a halfling. Fallen, fallen is Númenor the great."
"'tis ever the curse of the Men of the West to be undone by their own works," Faramir replied, "and so it is now with Pippin's sword."
"The sword is the arm that wields it, and the mind behind it," Eowyn rejoined, appraising Pippin with her gaze. Then she smiled and kissed Faramir on the cheek. "Go to the Houses of Healing. I shall find you there."
Faramir laughed and caressed Eowyn's jaw. "My lady."
"My lord."
Pippin walked away. He picked up his shirt and slung it on his shoulder, and took up a cloth with which to clean his sword. Faramir was in some ways a closer friend to him than Strider; his closest friend who was not a hobbit. He admired Eowyn, whom Merry would always claim as sister. To see their love and affection should have pleased him. Instead he was aflame with jealousy. What is wrong with me?
"You have bested the captain of the Ithilien guard, master holbytla," he heard behind him. He turned, and beheld Eowyn removing her long dress. The guards who were not of Ithilien and did not know the lady's ways were trying their best to disappear. But Beregond stood next to his princess, accepting her gown and handing her a cord with which to bind her long tresses. Pippin saw that beneath her healer's robes and lady's gown Eowyn wore singlet and breeches like her husband. She had no boots, however, and removing her slippers strode forward barefoot. "And you have caused the Steward of Gondor to yield," Eowyn added.
She held out her hand, and Beregond produced a sword, short and one-handed, with two horse's heads forming the hilt. Eowyn took it and twirled it in her wrist without difficulty. Her arms were slender and feminine, but stronger than many a youth's.
"But now, ah, defend yourself," Eowyn finished, "for you face a shieldmaiden of the Mark! And ungentle are we!" And she strode forward.
Pippin grinned again, and raising Trollsbane touched his brow to its blade, as Strider and Faramir taught him. Otherwise he remained silent and let the clash of swords speak for him.
Beregond had been less than his skill. Faramir, being his teacher, thought himself superior, and underestimated Pippin. Eowyn was his match. Her sword of the Mark was made for plain battle, and she moved with ruthless grace. She knew how to fight from horseback, trained to attack an enemy below her. Pippin was hard-pressed to find any advantage; he found himself truly on the defensive for the first time, managing to parry and evade, not to advance.
Still, in the Shire his dueling partner had been Merry, who knew the Rohirric style. She would tire. She was past thirty, and of little Númenórean blood. She, too, was growing old.
Pippin saw the slightest hint of an opening as Eowyn caught her breath. He took it, attempting an attack with upstrokes and midstrokes that soon had Eowyn on the defensive. He did not let her regroup to use her height and regain the advantage. He won ground as she gave it.
Eowyn's face showed little of the delight that Faramir's had. She refused to be bested by any man, friendly duel between friends or not. With a cry she spun and then lashed out with the flat of the blade, intending to knock Trollsbane out of Pippin's hands. Pippin anticipated her and braced himself as hard as he could.
The thick, heavy sword of the Mark struck the ancient steel of Cardolan. With a cruel crash both blades broke.
"Aah!" cried Eowyn, grabbing her wrist.
"Ouch!" Pippin said simultaneously, dropping the broken hilt and stumbling.
Beregond and the Ithilien guard rushed to their aid. Eowyn leaned on him, but offered her hand to Pippin. "Forgive me, Pippin! Foolish was it, and it has cost you your sword."
Pippin tried his best to be gallant, but the sight of Trollsbane smarted dearly. "You are the victor, my lady," he said. "And I can pick up another one of these care of our friendly local barrow wights." Not that I'm going back any time soon. My sword!
"No, you shall not need to replace it," said Eowyn. "The smiths of the city can reforge it. Or, if you wish, in a week or two Gimli's folk in the Glittering Caves could be—"
"No," said Pippin with a harshness he immediately regretted. Eowyn did not flinch, but her gaze turned steely. "I mean, no, thank you, my lady. But I don't have the time." He picked up his shirt and wiped the sweat from his face and chest before putting it back on. "I've lingered here too long as it is."
Eowyn bent and picked up the shards of Trollsbane. "Linger yet long enough for me to regift this to you," she said. Beneath her kindness shimmered steel. "I shall not like to see you venture forth swordless and disarmed into your quest."
"I have no quest," Pippin told her, unable to keep his voice pleasant. But Eowyn's face became undecipherable to him, and he let his words die.
Pippin had been in Minas Tirith for a week. The journey from the Shire had been swift and uneventful, the Greenway freshly paved and well-patrolled, the only obstacles being the cart-trains of Men resettling the countries of Minhiriath and Enedwaith. Not wanting to turn his journey into merely a visit with old friends, he took the long road south around the White Mountains and along the coast. For the first few days of the journey he was satisfied. But his nights were stricken with dreams, of the war, of Diamond, of a desert road. Finally on a showery morning in May, he rounded the bend at Harlond, and saw again Gondor's capital.
To his chagrin, he found that Strider and the court were absent. "The King Elessar is making a visit of state to Dale and the Kingdom Under The Mountain," he was informed. "He was accompanied by Queen Arwen and the lords Legolas and Gimli."
What, everyone's gone north? He had wished to avoid old friends, and now it seemed it was they who had inadvertently avoided him. "Who is in charge?" he asked the courtier.
"The Steward of Gondor," was the reply, and nothing could stop Pippin from grinning like a callow youth at the sight of Faramir. But Faramir was often busy, and they had not been able to spend time together until that morning when he had visited Pippin's training session with Beregond.
Pippin had been assigned his old quarters in the citadel, the one he had shared first with Gandalf and then with Merry in the heady months after Sauron's fall and before the arrival of Arwen. Swallow was stabled in the mews containing Shadowfax's old stall. His attendant was a young soldier whom he thought he recognized.
He had been right. "Do you not know my face any longer, master perian?" said the youth.
Pippin had blinked and then laughed. "Bergil!"
They clasped shoulders. "It is an honor to attend to you during your visit, my lord," said Bergil.
"Please, Bergil, call me Pippin. Or Peregrin if you must. Last I saw you, you were threatening to stand me on my head."
"As you wish, Lord Peregrin." Pippin gave up.
Now he leaned on the balustrade of the balcony outside his chambers, with the terraces of the city of kings flowing out beneath him. The Moon was bright upon the townlands. Pippin saw villages and hamlets where once only farmland had been, and farms where once were fallow fields. Lamps in the homes and lanes of the villages created a constellation upon the Pelennor. The city was a mountain of gleaming towers sparkling with lamplight, from the great gate to the Tower of Ecthelion. Minas Tirith was not the oldest city in Middle-earth, nor the largest, but gazing across from his high perch Pippin thought no other city would ever again be as breathtaking.
Still, there were older cities …
Bergil appeared. "Sir? The Steward is here."
"He is?" So late. "Well, then, send him in, Bergil."
He wondered what Faramir wanted. He looked around his chambers. No time to tidy. What did Pervinca always say? The day Pippin tidies will be Friday the first …
Faramir entered and observed Pippin's attempts at cleaning. "You should get Bergil to fetch a chambermaid," he said.
"Forty years of my sisters trying to get me to pick up after myself," Pippin replied, "won't be forgotten by anything so simple as my being a thousand miles away and a grown hobbit."
"Why not the servants?"
"Don't ask me. For some reason my mother and my sisters didn't want me spoiled. It didn't work. Have I told you the story of how my father became Thain?"
"Ah," said Faramir. "A sordid tale of lust, intrigue, and murder. How is your sister?"
"Well. Everybody's well."
"Your lady wife?"
"Wonderful," Pippin said. He didn't like the turn of the conversation
"She remains behind."
"Obviously."
He could feel Faramir's long sight peering into his thoughts. Pippin didn't like the feeling. He slammed his mind shut with such strength Faramir physically blinked.
"Forgive me," said Faramir. "I did not think you would mind."
"Well I do. So keep your Númenórean gifts out of my head, thank you very much."
Faramir nodded. "My friend—if I may still presume to call you so …"
Pippin felt bad. "Of course I'm your friend," he said. "You're closer to me than anyone except Merry and Sam."
"Not even the King?"
"Not even Strider."
"Then forgive a close friend's concern, Peregrin. You arrived here six days ago, seeking lore regarding Far Harad. The libraries have been open to you day and night. I see you have found some of what you seek." He indicated the bound books and open scrolls, and the sheafs scribbled with Pippin's blocky hand. "Yet you have not shared why."
Pippin sighed. He had been too guarded among good friends who knew him well.
"I'm just restless, Faramir," he said. "That's all."
"All?" repeated Faramir. "Restless enough to leave wife and home to venture headlong into a foreign land so far distant few in Gondor have seen it themselves?" Faramir waited, and then when it was clear he would receive no answer, he ventured, "Have you and your lady yet have a child?"
Pippin smiled. "Yes." He gazed fondly at his friend, knowing this would please him. "I named him after you."
"I am honored indeed."
"I'd think he even looks like you."
"That would be odd."
"No odder than anything else that's ever happened to me."
He heard Faramir sigh and then rest in silence. He wondered if Faramir were probing his mind again.
"You can always stop me, my friend," Faramir said. Ah, so he was, thought Pippin. "It is my gift, as it was my father's, to perceive the thoughts of others. You, however, need not fear unwanted intrusion delving too deep. That you can discern my gaze is a gift in itself. That you can thwart it with your will is better than a broad shield."
Pippin scoffed, uncomfortable. "Next you'll be telling me I've long sight from some distant Elvish strain."
"Are there not tales of a fairy bride in your line?"
"Certainly. As certain as the fact that my ancestor's head could not have reached her navel."
"A fool, and a child, you came to this city in the dark days of my father, and you gladdened his heart, such as it was. I see neither child nor fool before me. A halfling, hard, bold and wicked."
"Treasonous Bergil. Now who's making fun?"
"Men of Gondor do not make fun."
Pippin stalked away. "I didn't come here to be talked out of what I want to do," he said. "You don't understand my reasons."
"And you should not feel the need to explain them. But, Peregrin, do you understand them yourself? Or do you fly into the unknown not only heedlessly, but without even hope?"
Pippin refused to answer. He feared what he might say.
Faramir sighed. "Will you not let your friends dissuade you?"
Pippin shook his head.
"Even I?"
Again Pippin refused.
"It saddens me to think you unhappy even in these golden days," said Faramir, and he crossed the room and laid a warm gloved hand upon Pippin's shoulder. Pippin looked up at the Steward, and saw only kindness and worry in his eyes.
Faramir knelt. "Hast thou forgotten I owe thee my life, Peregrin Took?"
Pippin was a hobbit. Hobbits do not shy from embracing. He did not.
Pippin was in the Shire. Swallow was galloping through the Westmarch. Behind Pippin, the woody crests of the Far Downs receded. Before him loomed the starlit ridge of the Tower Hills.
He rode up their slopes. The wind blew in from the sea, which he could discern, the Firth of Lune, from the summit of the tallest hill. He turned away from it, over his shoulder, to the tallest of the three elf towers. There was a door at the base. It was shut.
Pippin went to the door and touched its handle with his hand. It did not move.
"I'm here," he said to it. "I've come."
The door opened, like the unsealing of a crypt.
Stairs led to the summit. There were artifacts in the dimness, mathoms of long ago, but Pippin ignored them. He climbed the staircase through shadows broken by shafts of moonlight without pause or word.
Atop the tower was a chamber. Within the chamber was a pedestal. Upon it rested a palantir.
Pippin walked up to it. Its pedestal was four feet tall. He could just look over its edge. But he didn't need the pedestal. He needed the stone.
He reached for the orb and gently rolled it off its platform into his arms. He looked at it. It remained dark and still.
Pippin sat, or did he fall? He rested on the ground, the palantir on his lap, dim and void. He grasped it with both hands and said, "Show him to me. Let me see."
For a long instant the stone remained silent. Then in its depth it began to glimmer.
"Yes, please," said Pippin. "Show him to me. I have to see him! I want to see if he's all right!"
Clouds whirled and storms roiled within the palantir, then: grey. Pippin frowned, and then realized he was looking upon the sea, miles and miles of sea, slipping away from him at tremendous speed. He could almost feel the wind clutching at his clothes and hair. Filling his nostrils, crushing them if he tried to turn his head. Tearing pieces of himself away. He ignored the discomfort. He had to see! He had to know!
The sea ended. Waves washed upon jeweled shores and a quay with moored ships like seabirds. Beyond it, a city with towers woven into the trees. Upon the side of a mountain was a waterfall. In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit. His hair was still dark, his face bright. He looked right at Pippin, who staggered under the glare of what seemed like all the heavens of the world.
"Your jewel is in the desert," said Frodo. "Wake up, baby cousin."
Pippin bolted awake. "Frodo!" But no, it was just a dream. There was no palantir in the Tower Hills. That had gone with Frodo too. With Frodo, and Bilbo, and Gandalf. Across the Sea. Never to return.
He picked up his cup where he'd placed it by the bedside and took a sip of water. Then, in a fit of pique, he flung it across the room and dashed it against the hearth, where it lay in pieces. He'd leave in the morning.
Pippin rose late. He had managed to fall asleep again, and missed first and second breakfast. He ate a couple of peaches from the platter of fruit in his chamber. He washed. Then he dressed in the new clothes that Eowyn had given him., including a belt that seemed meant for a scabbard. Pippin wondered if today were the day she'd return his sword.
He found a pair of leather vambraces, made of tough, polished black leather, adorned with the White Tree and seven stars. The little scroll next to them said they were from Beregond and Bergil.
He looked at himself in the mirror. He looked … rascally. Rascally?
"Well, I do, and I think I like it," he said to his reflection. "Don't we, precious? Yes, we do."
He sighed. "I'll end up like that old villain yet, I fear," he mused. "Especially if I don't have something to eat. After all, here I am, missing first and second breakfast, and possibly elevenses, and already having a nice conversation with no one but myself. Gollum, gollum." He was hungry.
Bergil was already standing outside the door. "Good morrow, Pippin," he said. He saw the vambraces and smiled. "They fit you. Who were you speaking to?"
"No one, precious," said Pippin, who couldn't help himself. "Would you come with me for breakfast? What time is it?"
"An hour past second watch."
"Oh dear. Breakfast, second breakfast, and elevenses then."
"I shall run ahead and alert the King's banquet hall."
"You do that. No, I'm only joking. What a lovely day." It was: springtime in its fullness, breezes full of sea tang and all the spices of the meadows and fields that lay between Minas Tirith and the limpid waters of the Bay of Belfalas. The Anduin, brown with flood, lazed its way through Harlond towards the sea. From the height of the Citadel Pippin thought he espied Pelargir, a creamy glimmer at the river's end.
"Pelargir was a thousand years old when Gondor was founded," he said, pondering.
"So we are told," Bergil answered, a line of confusion tracing its way above his eyes. "Though I myself have never been there."
"The great port above Anduin's mouths was built as a haven for the ships of Númenor in the reign of Tar-Atanamir," Pippin recited. "The harbor became the chief refuge in Middle-earth for the Faithful of Númenor. But Umbar was greater still."
"Umbar is yet a dangerous place," Bergil said dubiously. "The lords of that city swore in treaty with the King, but Corsairs still have raided merchant vessels on occasion."
"How goes the navy building?" asked Pippin.
"You should ask the Steward," said Bergil. "Although … friends of mine are training as sailors, and the ships are being built in the new harbor on the Second Mouth of Anduin, across from Pelargir."
"Gondor's first thousand years saw her rise under her sea-kings," Pippin said, again reciting from a book he'd committed to memory. "At her height, she approached the glory of lost Númenor, and all the nations of the world came to the court of the King beneath the Dome of Stars in Osgiliath."
Bergil was regarding him with curiosity. "You know more of our history than I do, my lord," he said. "It is clear you have put in long hours of study. May I ask why?"
The whole histories of Middle-earth, Pippin thought. He missed Gandalf.
"Simple curiosity, Bergil," he said. "It's a family trait, you know."
He quickened his pace, so Bergil had to walk faster to catch up.
Faramir and Eowyn awaited in the Courtyard of the Fountain with another person, a tall, swarthy man with dark eyes and a head covering that seemed to be made of fine fabric wound around the head in a twisted rope. The man had a short, pointed beard and eyes rimmed with dark pigment.
"Peregrin," said Faramir gravely. "This is Sartanukil, a merchant of Harad. He is sailing for Umbar this evening from Pelargir. I have informed him of your ambition to visit the lands to the south and he has agreed that, if you wish, you may join him as a guest aboard his vessel."
Pippin bowed to the stranger. "I would be happy to accept such a generous offer, my lord Sartanukil," he said. "I am Peregrin Took, son of Paladin Thain of the Shire."
"Sweet fortune be upon you, Razanur Tuk," replied the Southron, repeating Pippin's name in such a fashion that it seemed exotic and strange. "Our voyage is surely to be blest with the company of one of the great warriors who abetted the return of the King to mighty Gondor."
Neither Pippin, nor Faramir, responded in any way other than with more bowing. But both had heard what was beneath the surface of the words of the merchant of Harad.
"I am only half a warrior, my lord, if stature is any account," said Pippin. "Though I confess to some half-skill with a blade."
"Gods willing, that shall not be necessary while we sail blue Belfalas," replied Sartanukil.
But when I land in Umbar I'm sure a Dúnedain sword will draw attention, thought Pippin. That reminded him of Trollsbane's fate, and he turned to Eowyn, who smiled.
"Yes, it is here," she said, and she produced the object she had kept behind her in her cloak. "Your sword is reforged, my friend."
Pippin stared at it, its hilt bright against a new black leather scabbard emblazoned with silver filigree of the White Tree and Stars. He took it from Eowyn's hands and was amazed he did not tremble. He looked at her, unable to keep from smiling like a child on someone's birthday, and then at Faramir, and even at the Southron.
Then he drew it. This was a new sword. It slipped easily, with a hushed whisper, from its scabbard. The hilt was brushed to a gleam, with a grip wrapped with black leather. The enchanted steel of Cardolan had gone into a shape new and fresh. Its grip was longer, its pommel slightly larger, balancing the longer and more gracefully tapered blade. It was no longer a child's sword wielded by a hobbit. It was now a hobbit's sword, handed-and-a-half and more than two feet long from pommel to tip.
He stepped a short distance from the watching Big People and tried a few cuts and passes. Perfect. He had grown used to adapting to the idiosyncrasies of fighting with a weapon meant for Men that he felt new and strange.
The sun gleamed on the blade. Pippin noticed runes etched into the fuller near the curved Gondorin crossguard.
He read them. "Troll's bane falcon's strike," he said aloud, and frowned quizzically. "Falcon strike?"
"Surely you have heard your epithet among the young soldiers of the Tower Guard."
"I thought they were joking." He had seen, at times, the little falcons, with their golden eyes, silvery breasts, and sable hoods. He'd heard their piercing cries often while he dwelled here with the Fellowship in the aftermath of Sauron's fall, as they nested among tall cliffs and high places—and what was Minas Tirith but a city of cliffs and high places?
"In Gondor of old," remarked Faramir, "the falcon was kept by the kings as a companion in war and sport. Its name—your name—means 'wanderer'."
"I never gave any thought that my name had any meaning," Pippin confessed, feeling uncomfortable with being compared to such a fell and noble creature. "It was just a jest, in the way of my people. Peregrin I may be, but everyone calls me Pippin, and as far as I know the noblest meaning to come from that is when my sister Pervinca threatened to bake me into pie."
Laughter, as Pippin had hoped. "Never let the expectations of others rule your opinion of yourself," said Eowyn, "be you wanderer, falcon, or windfallen apple." And she smiled with Pippin.
Sartanukil was watching them. "The nomads of the deserts have a saying: the sand can bear what the river cannot."
"Indeed," said Faramir.
Pippin felt a surge of feeling for his friends and for Minas Tirith. He knew if he did not leave now, he never would; and he'd find himself back in Tuckborough before summer. He sheathed his sword and deftly tied its scabbard to his belt.
"I must go," he said shortly. "I'm sure you wish to get to your ship as soon as possible," he said to Sartanukil, who tipped his head in acknowledgement.
Pippin went to Faramir. The two friends clutched arms, and then Pippin hugged him. Faramir did not resist. "Farewell," said the Steward of Gondor. "You are a Guard of the Citadel, wherever you may wander; the White Tower will know you and welcome you home."
Pippin nodded. "Take care, Faramir. Tell Strider I'm sorry I missed him. He really should stay home more often."
Faramir laughed. "I shall tell him."
Eowyn was still smiling when he embraced her. She hugged him. "Far fields may you find, falconling," she said. "Take care of your steed. She is of the Mearas, and will not fail you."
"I'll remember that. And thank you for the sword."
"You are most welcome."
Pippin pulled away. He gazed up at her with a cheeky smile. "Merry was right about you."
Eowyn laughed. "What did my sword-brother say about me?"
"All sorts of nice things," Pippin replied.
"Well then," said Eowyn, "when you see him again, give Merry my love."
Pippin nodded. "But if you get to see him before I do," he asked her, "give him mine."
So departed Peregrin Took from Minas Tirith and all that he had yet known.