6. Of herbs and broken bones
I woke next morning aching and stiff in every part of me. The high, narrow window with its pointed arch let in a glimmer of grey light. I got up and tried without much success to comb my hair with my fingers; then I leaned against the balustrade and pushed the casements with their uneven panes of glass wide open. The air was cool, smelling of wood smoke and garden herbs, and I breathed in deeply.
Someone knocked at the door. I spun around and tried to smooth my wrinkled nightshirt, wanting desperately to look presentable.
"Yes?"
The door was pushed open energetically and a little old woman whirled in, carrying a bundle over her arm. She closed the door with a bang and looked me over from head to toe with quick, bright eyes that made me think of an inquisitive little bird.
"Ah... so you are the damsel Lord Faramir and his men picked up on their way to the Minas Tirith? Poor thing! But you are lovely – perhaps a bit on the thin side, yes? And such beautiful hair! Is it true that you don't know who you are or where you come from?"
I opened my mouth to speak, but I could have spared my breath.
"I have brought you soap and fresh towels, love. And you cannot walk around in men's clothing – my goodness! Here is an under-dress and a robe of the sort we wear here in the Houses of Healing. And I brought sandals for you as well – they belong to my niece, and your feet are small like hers so they should fit – and a comb. I can make up your bed while you get dressed."
For heaven's sake, no! "I... Could I get some water, please?" I interrupted hastily.
"Water. Yes, of course –water! Where is my head this morning! I'll bring you a jug and a washbowl – back in a moment, love!"
The door slammed again and she was gone. I pulled a face – half amused and half desperate – as I inspected the pieces of clothing she had left on the desk in a neat pile beside a clay pot full of soft brown herbal soap (lots of rosemary, I thought, sniffing at it). There were some thick, green towels as well, in several sizes. The robe was made of grey, smoothly woven linen, and it felt pleasant under my palm. Before I could examine the under-dress more closely, the old woman was back again, a steaming jug clutched against herself with one arm and in the other hand a basin.
"You're welcome, love. Get ready now, quick, and then we'll see where we can get some breakfast for you. The warden says that Lord Gandalf will be here soon to talk with you again."
"I know," I replied, giving her a brilliant smile. "Thank you very much for your help. We will meet again soon, then... yes?"
She closed her mouth, looking disappointed (obviously I had escaped the next torrent of words only by a hair!) and then she drew back, left the room and the door slammed for the third time this morning. I sighed in relief, slipped out of the nightshirt and began to wash myself.
vvvvv
Half an hour later I was dressed, my hair was combed and plaited into a thick braid, and I had finally gotten something to eat. I sat in a long, narrow room before a broad window enjoying my meal: milk and fresh bread, honey and fruit. The room was plainly a kind of refectory, where normally all the healers and caregivers would take their meals together.
This morning, however, I was alone and the room was very quiet. The day was gloomy and candles were burning in a branched candlestick on the table.
As I finished eating, the man who had examined me the previous evening came in and sat down. He introduced himself as Oroher, the warden of the Houses of Healing, and asked if I wished to have a look around while I waited for Gandalf.
For the next hour he ushered me through one treatment room after another. Everything was neat, well thought-out and scrupulously clean. In one room dozens of different herbs were stored, also ointments and oils: glasses, bottles and jars arrayed on shelves that lined the walls from floor to ceiling. The containers of dark glass were labeled with fine letters and very realistic drawings of the living plants. Oroher waited patiently while I wandered along the shelves, fascinated and trying to understand the system by which the herbs were arranged.
"... blazes, how could that happen to me again!" It was a small, shabby-looking man with a kind face, wrinkled with age. His sleeves were rolled up and over his robe he wore an apron which had started out white, but now was blotched with spots of grease. A powerful aroma of peppermint hung about him, strong enough to make me sneeze.
"Did you have an accident, Mardil?" the warden asked mildly, his voice a mixture of humour and gentle resignation.
The old man blinked and finally noticed our presence. "Ah, Oroher," he said absent-mindedly. "You know, someone left a bed sheet on the ground outside. My feet got tangled in it somehow and the bottle slipped out of my hands." He shot a puzzled glance at me. "And you, damsel? Do you need something? Do you have a fever? A cold? I have no more eucalyptus, for the channels of supply from the south are unfortunately cut. And the peppermint oil... ah, yes, that..." His eyes were like a child's, sky blue, and he smiled at me shyly as if his awkwardness was terribly embarrassing to him. I loved him at once.
"No, I don't have a cold," I said, returning his smile. "But if I did have a fever, I would find everything I needed here. I see you have a good stock of willowbark and marigold."
His eyebrows shot up, vanishing under the cover of his tousled grey mop of hair. "Oh, are you skillful in healing?" he exclaimed with delight. I remembered just in time that I wasn't supposed to know if I was skillful or not, and I tried to look as perplexed as possible.
"Obviously the damsel is well-informed," Oroher said cheerfully, laying a hand on my shoulder. "This gives me hope, child... perhaps your memory will come back later on. Would you like to lend the herbmaster a hand, if Lord Gandalf has no objection?" He glanced at Mardil. "I think he really could use some help."
"Perhaps she could stay here right now?" Mardil inquired hopefully.
Oroher promised to call me as soon as Gandalf arrived, bidding me a friendly farewell. I took a dustpan and broom out of a corner and swept up the shards of glass from behind the door. While I mopped up the spilled oil, Mardil gave me a lecture on the healing virtues of wolfsbane and thyme.
vvvvv
Gandalf arrived late in the forenoon; he looked tired and worried and he didn't have much time. I brought him a mug of cooled wine and we went out into the herb gardens.
"Did you tell Denethor about me?" I asked. He took a sip of his wine and shook his head.
"I avoided the subject," he said. "I don't know how he would react in his present state of mind."
"Thank you," I said. "The most reasonable thing for me to do is to stay right here. I have begun to make myself at least a little useful."
"How so?" Gandalf regarded me curiously, then frowned and sniffed. "You smell of peppermint."
I grinned. "The herbmaster had a problem with a bottle of peppermint oil."
"Mardil?"Gandalf snorted audibly and shook his head. "He is a well of wisdom, unfortunately with two left hands. He needs all the help he can get."
He set down his mug and looked at me. "I want to ask you something. How much did the Pengolodh write down? Last night you said that he knew the One, and I don't understand how that is possible. He has not been here for ten years, and it is only in the last year that I have been certain myself what ring it was, that Frodo had all this time at Bag End. I assume you know who Frodo Baggins is, and where he is going?"
I nodded wordlessly.
"But how do you know him?"
I looked down at my hands. "I think," I said slowly, "it has to do with the fact that we are coming from different times. In the time where... where I come from, the Pengolodh has been dead for nearly thirty years."
I heard him breathe in sharply.
"Dead? I have to admit, I didn't expect that." He was visibly shaken. After a moment of silence, he added softly: "He was a man of wisdom, not a warrior, and when I last met him he seemed healthy, in the prime of life."
"Gandalf." I looked into his eyes, holding them. "When he died thirty years ago, he was more than eighty years old and – in our world – a very aged man."
He took another sip of wine as he pondered my words.
"But that means..."
I could see the sudden realization in his eyes.
"... that means, he will come one more time. After the Ring War – however it ends. Is that true?"
I nodded again, not daring to speak. It was only too obvious what he would ask next.
"Do you know how it ends?"
I sighed. "Yes, I know."
"Tell me."
I remained silent.
He laid a hand on my arm. It was not a hard grip, but I was aware suddenly of the tremendous power concealed in the body of the old wizard – power that was now very close to the surface.
"I don't ask you to tell me every detail. I would not want to know everything, and I understand why you hesitate. Perhaps I, too, would hesitate, in your place. But I must demand one thing of you: Give us hope!"
I looked up at him. His face held great authority, but also deep pain, and his eyes burned with intensity.
"Give us hope," he repeated.
Shyly I put my hand on top of his. I would not have dared such a thing, but his distress was palpable, and he seemed almost forlorn as he contemplated the struggle before him.
"The king will come," I said, aware that my voice was shaking. The wizard kept his eyes fastened on my face. "And the mission of the Ringbearer is not in vain. Sauron will fall."
The strong old fingers turned and closed around mine so hard that I bit my lips.
"Do you swear that?"
"I swear it by my life,"I said, and now my voice was steady. "Sauron will fall."
Gandalf released my hand then. Suddenly, unexpectedly, he leaned forward and took my face in his hands, kissing my forehead. I stood absolutely still, shaken and deeply moved. Then he turned away without another word and went down the garden path, his steps quick. He held himself very straight, and there was a new impetus to his movements. The tall white figure blurred before my eyes, and I realized without surprise that I was weeping.
vvvvv
By early afternoon I had sorted the jars of herbs and bottles of oil in Mardil's storeroom, at least superficially. Then I went with the herbmaster to the refectory or, more accurately, I found the way there for both of us, after Mardil led us astray and we ended up in a huge room full of clean bed sheets piled to the ceiling. He was dismayed at getting us lost, but he didn't lose his good humour and dug into the simple stew served by the kitchen with a hearty appetite. I found out later that he had been working in the Houses of Healing for forty years or more, and in spite of that fact he still lost his way every second day.
After the quick meal I left Mardil and went to look for Oroher. He was in one of the sick rooms, and had just finished dressing a deep wound in a young man's leg. It seemed to be an open laceration, but as far as I could see, the bones had already been adjusted properly. On a tray before the warden lay white linen bandages and a bowl containing a dark green herbal mash. I smelled a powerful aroma of arnica, but also another scent that I couldn't identify at once, bitter and a little sharp.
"Is this field horsetail?" I asked. Oroher smiled approvingly and nodded, and once more I blessed my grandmother to whom I owed my knowledge. I observed how Oroher drew a part of the dressings through the herbal mash and placed them carefully on the well-cleaned wound, and he noticed that I was watching.
"Have you ever placed a bandage?" he asked.
"I'm not sure," I lied, remembering three months of practical training in the hospital of my hometown. The head nurse who kept half a dozen terrified students under her thumb at that time had forgotten more about healing wounds and caring for patients than I would ever learn, and she knew it. To fool around with dressing material under her gimlet eyes would have been suicide.
"I could try," I suggested with appropriate humility. So I wound a snowy white bandage over the herb-soaked dressing, while Oroher supervised. I could almost hear Nurse Irmingard's snarling alto in my ears: Smooth, firm and neat, or are you trying to plait a braid, lassie? When I finished, the warden nodded in satisfaction and allowed me to accompany during the rest of his round. That morning I splinted a broken arm, tended to the burned hand of an old woman, and placed five more bandages. From then on I was tacitly part of the staff.
vvvvv
Near evening I sat in Mardil's storeroom going over a list, when suddenly the old woman who had brought me my fresh garments in the morning rushed in.
"A visitor for you, love," she said cheerfully, throwing a dark look at the herbmaster, who was filling a jar with camomile blooms and humming under his breath. "Leave this old codger here alone and come with me. He is waiting in the gardens."
Curious, I followed her up the long stairway and out of the building. She guided me to the western side of the Houses; a high wall, elegantly engraved, crowned the hill and offered a view of the Mindolliun.
Close by the wall a man stood motionless, a black silhouette. I didn't recognize him right away.
"Hello?" I asked hesitantly. At the sound of my voice, the man turned around and I realized that it was Damrod.
"Good evening!" I smiled and went to him, but when I looked into his face the joy in my heart died away and I was frightened. He was deathly pale and his eyes looked as if all the life in them had drained away.
"I only came to bid you farewell," he said briefly. "The Steward sends the Lord Faramir to Osgiliath, and I go with him."
My blood turned to ice and I shivered.
"Osgiliath?" I said in a low voice. "I... they have told me here that this place was conquered by the superior force of the enemy, and there is practically no chance of retaking it not without a much larger army than this city possesses. This is suicide."
"I know." He turned away, and I moved to stand beside him. All I could see was his profile, utterly motionless.
"Could you... could you not stay? You must know, I really care about you, Damrod." I tried to sound casual, and failed miserably.
"I cannot." The deep voice sounded tired but resolute. "I more or less grew up with the son of the Steward. We learned our fencing and archery side by side... the only time Faramir ever got drunk, he was with me." His smile was bleak. "I held his head while he threw up in the horse trough."
He stepped away from the wall.
"I am one of his men," he said simply. "I will follow wherever he goes. Certainly I would like to survive this war, but that is not in my hands. I will not let him down, not like..." He stopped.
I met his eyes, brushing the hair out of my face; the braid that hung down my back had loosened during the day and the breeze swept wisps of my hair, soft as feathers, against my cheeks.
"Like his own father?" I asked quietly.
He looked at me broodingly.
"Obviously there is much talk in the Houses of Healing," he said. Suddenly he reached out and took one of my loose tendrils of hair between two fingers, putting it gently behind my ear.
"I will return if I can." He smiled a little and for a confusing moment his fingers glided down from my ear and rested on my neck, warm against my skin. "You must also be careful, Noerwen, for... I care for you."
He turned and walked away. I stood by the wall watching him until he was out of sight, a maelstrom of regret and fear and terrible rage seething inside me.
I felt driven to do something, something that would stop this whole madness. But what? Could I storm into the throne room of the Kings and confront the Steward to his face, dashing passionate accusation in his face? You send your son, your own son, to certain death – and for what purpose?
I bit my lip. I would not be permitted into his presence; Denethor didn't even know that I existed and that was all to the good. It was of no use for me to interfere, and already I feared to disturb the delicate balance of events. There was nothing I could do.
What was my task in Middle-earth? What was I doing here?I leaned over one of the fountains that dotted the garden, splashing cool water in my face. Then I loosened my braid and plaited it anew, waiting to regain my composure. At last I went back to the herbmaster, seated myself again behind the writing table.
„Mardil?" I asked. „Do you know anything about elven languages?"
He looked up in surprise, nearly dropping his second bottle for the day – this time a phial of arnica essence.
"Surely, child." he replied, after having placed the small bottle safely in a shelf. "What do you want to know?"
"What does the word Noerwen mean?"
He frowned and murmured under his breath for a moment; then his face brightened.
"That is quite simple," he replied, raising an instructive forefinger. "Noer or Naur is Sindarin for fire. And the suffix –wen means maiden." The blue, childlike eyes examined me with interest. "Fire Maiden…how poetic! Did someone give you that name? I think it fits very well."
I smiled sadly and put the quill back into the pot to keep the ink from dripping on my neatly written parchment. "Maybe," I murmured, and ran both hands over my face; suddenly I was very tired. "At least I have a name again."