Chapter 28
Rhian and Aria skirted cautiously around the southern end of the Dead Marshes. Aria was pale and anxious. Rhian was limping, but the pain in her ankle had settled to a steady throbbing ache. She could ignore it well enough. They walked steadily and their camps were brief. It was impossible to sleep much, with the eerie lights shining over the marsh so close by, but even in haste Rhian was unwilling to walk so near treacherous ground in the dark.
Four days later they left the Marshes behind them. Rhian breathed easier, but her relief did not last long. There was no sign of Frodo and Sam anywhere. The air was clear and cold, and the land stretched away from them in long, shallow, barren slope. Rhian shivered, looking around. East and south of them lay the great black mountains, dark and ominous, and terribly near. Frodo and Sam, led by Gollum, might be anywhere among those mountains by now.
"What shall we do?" Rhian looked down. Aria, beside her, looked pale but resolute as she stared at mountains of Mordor.
"I suppose," Rhian said slowly, "that the best we can do is...to head straight for it, and hope to find some trace of Frodo." She felt a tug somewhere beneath her breastbone. Yes. This way.
Aria nodded. They set their faces toward Mordor, and began walking.
The second day found them entering sparse groves of twisted pine trees, over grown with shrubs; beyond they could see slopes thickly covered with sombre trees. Rhian felt her heart lift. She had always keenly felt the absence of trees, and even these poor ones soothed her. They were near the mountains now, but they did not look up at the black crags. They had walked in silence, speaking briefly when they made camp, but only briefly. All their energies were focused forward, like an arrow fixed to a taut string.
It was afternoon on the third day when the armed men came.
They heard them before they saw them. Shouts and screams sounded out of the woods ahead, and terrible crashing. The sound of metal on metal came nearer, and Rhian set herself before Aria, drawing her sword. The men broke through the trees; dark men garbed in scale mail of gold, robed in scarlet. They bore curved shining swords. The strangers stopped in surprise at the sight of the woman garbed in green, what seemed to be a child crouched behind her. But it was only a moment before they had thrown themselves forward. Rhian's sword moved swiftly, the curved blades scraping against her slender one. They came at her two at once, and she took a cut across her arm before her blade sank deeply into the gap between two pieces of mail and drew blood. The man she had marked fell back, clutching his wound, but another came to take his place. It was in that brief moment that she saw they were not alone.
Tall men in green, hooded and masked, were fighting with them as well. Rhian had only a second to wonder who they were before her opponent took advantage of her distraction. He caught her blade in his, trapping it, and had suddenly in his hand a dagger. Rhian moved too late to dodge away, and the wicked blade sliced deeply in to her thigh. And then her enemy was fallen, the sword of one of the hooded men in his back. Rhian staggered as the man fell, her sword twisted from her hand and falling to the ground, blood streaking down her arm and soaking her thigh. For a long moment Rhian found herself staring over the body of her dead foe in to the eyes of the masked man. Slowly he reached up and pulled his mask away. Rhian cried out and tumbled forward in to his arms.
"Jon!"
Rhian, walking slowly and painfully, was grateful for Jonathan's steadying arm. The sounds of battle had quieted while Jon and Aria had staunched her bleeding and bound the wounds on her thigh and arm. They stayed hidden in the bracken where Jon had carried Rhian until one of his companions, the hooded men in green, came and sought him. Rhian managed between times to tell Jonathan briefly how she came to be under attack in Ithilien, the quest that had brought her out of Rivendell, and the strange pull that seemed to guide her. She also introduced him to Aria, the quiet, gentle young man and the loving hobbit maid taking to each other instantly.
Rhian's leg hurt horribly with every step, making it clear that it did not approve of being both sprained and stabbed. The gash on her arm was a lesser pain, the cuts on her hands stinging sharply. She felt stiff with the pain. What did it feel like to be more or less in one piece? She could not remember.
"A little farther, now," Jonathan murmured. A few minutes later they came out into a clearing that held near two or three hundred men, all garbed and cloaked in varying shades of green, and masked as Jon had been. Rhian saw spears and long bows near at hand among their ranks. The whole company was seated in a great semi-circle, and as they came near she could see clearly the young hobbit who stood between the arms of it, speaking in a clear, high voice; polite, but strained and full of grief.
"Will you not put aside your doubt of me and let me go?" Frodo asked. "I am weary, and full of grief, and afraid. But I have a deed to do, or to attempt, before I too am slain. And the more need of haste, if we two halflings are all that remain of our Fellowship. Go back, Faramir, valiant Captain of Gondor, and defend your city while you may, and let me go where my doom takes me."
"Frodo!" Three hundred men twisted around in surprise as the small form of Aria ran past and threw herself in to their prisoner's arms. Rhian stopped, leaning on Jonathan, and smiled as Frodo recovered enough to give Aria a sweet kiss. Sam, standing on the opposite side where Rhian had not seen him before, wiped his eyes.
The man Frodo had been speaking to stood, turning towards them, and Rhian was struck by his close resemblance to Boromir. After her parting from the warrior of Gondor, she might have feared this man who was so like him, but the emotion never occured to her. His face was grace and stern, but handsome, and there was gentleness in his manner and kindness in his eyes. There was also a sharp intelligence, and a measure of doubt lingering in them as his sharp glance as it fell on Rhian.
"What is this, Baran?" Faramir asked, looking from Rhian; disheveled, streaked with dirt and blood, grey-cloaked and bearing sword and bow and harp, to Aria, who stepped out of Frodo's arms to curtsey, though she held fast to his hand.
"My lord," Jonathan said, "this woman is Rhiannon, daughter of Bran, and kin to me." Faramir looked at her in wonder, but his keen grey eyes quickly saw her pain, though she lifted her chin and met his look levelly.
Faramir looked at Frodo. The hobbit stood, blushing, with Aria's hand clasped tightly in his- at the man's look she stepped away enough to curtsy, but she did not let go. "These women were members your party?" he asked.
"Yes, my lord," Frodo said.
Faramir looked at Jonathan. "And you will vouch for them?"
"My lord, Rhiannon is the niece of my father's wife, and kin to me, though not by blood. She has my trust."
"And this lady halfling?" Faramir asked, a smile touching the corners of his mouth as he looked down at Aria.
"My lord," Jonathan said, "this is Aria Tooke, known only to me for a short while, but for my part I would trust her, and anyone that Rhiannon trusted."
Rhian lifted her chin as Faramir looked at her. "And do you, lady, vouch for these halflings?"
"I do, my lord," she said. "Aria and I have come from Rauros seeking them."
"I see," the man said wryly, looking at the blushing Frodo. He seemed to be considering something, his handsome face turning grave and thoughtful. Rhian shifted, trying to relieve the pain in her leg, and hissed softly at the sharp pang the movement caused. Faramir's eyes flickered to her, and he seemed to make a decision.
"Some of your Company, it seems, live still, Frodo," he said. "Whatever befell on the North March, you I doubt no longer. If hard days have made me any judge of Men's words and faces, then I may make a guess at Halflings! Though," he smiled, "there is something strange about you, Frodo, an elvish air, maybe. And I know enough of our friend Baran to trust his word. But more lies upon our words together than I thought at first. I should now take you back to Minas Tirith to answer there to Denethor, and my life will justly be forfeit, if I now choose a course that proves ill for my city. So I will not decide in haste what is to be done. Yet we must move hence without more delay."
He began issuing orders, and the men that had surrounded him began breaking apart in to smaller groups, disappearing in to the trees. Soon only two men were left, and Faramir beckoned to them.
"Now you, Frodo and Samwise, and you, ladies Rhiannon and Aria, shall come with me and my guards," he said. "You cannot go along the road southwards, if that was your purpose. It will be unsafe for some days, and always more closely watched after this affray than it has been yet. And you cannot, I think, go very far today in any case, for you are weary, and you, lady," he paused as he looked at Rhian. She was still steady on her feet, with the aid of Jonathan's arm, but her face was pale and taut with pain. "You are in need of rest and care, I deem, lady, and the men of Gondor are not yet such that they would refuse a woman aid."
"Thank you," Rhian said quietly. Jonathan's hand on her elbow tightened gently.
"We are going now to a secret place we have, somewhat less than ten miles from here," Faramir said. "The Orcs and spies of the Enemy have not found it yet, and if they did, we could hold it long even against many. There we may lie up and rest for a while, and you with us. In the morning I will decide what is best for me to do, and for you."
They set out at once. The two men, who Faramir called Mablung and Damrod, went ahead, the halflings following a little ways behind with Faramir, and Jon at the rear, his arm kept carefully about Rhian's waist. The woman saw that the raven haired captain looked often back to see their progress, and slowed his pace so that she was never far behind. But he spoke no word on the matter, and Rhian's pride was grateful. She was more grateful still for the solidity of her cousin at her side.
Rhian had not realized, or not allowed to let herself realize, how much she had missed the members of her small, strange family. She had clung to the nearness of her sister, not thinking on Rosie, left in Rivendell, nor Bryan, who was surely elsewhere in Middle Earth. Especially she did not think on her fiery haired aunt Lianne, trapped far ahead in the future. Tears stung her eyes. Then she had left her sister, too, and gone adrift without kin except Aria, her precious adopted sister. Rhian smiled through her tears at the sight of the hobbit girl, walking ahead, hand in hand with Frodo and watching him as though she could not bear to look away. She looked uncommonly beautiful beneath the green trees, a bright point in the dappled sunlight, glowing with love.
Rhian stumbled, but Jonathan's strong arm tightened. Before she could protest, the young man bent and scooped her up in his arms. She was no small woman, but he was a tall man and held her against his chest easily enough.
"I can walk!" Rhian objected.
"Of course you can," he said softly. "But would you deny me the pleasure of carrying you?"
"I-" Rhian fumbled, looking in to his face, now so near her own. His gentle dark eyes sparkled at her, and she gave in. Walking did hurt a great deal, and being carried as very nice at present. Rhian cleared her throat. "Um. What was it that Lord Faramir called you?" she asked. "Baran?"
"Ah," he said. "'Jonathan' is not a name much suited to a ranger of Ithilien, and does not come easily to the tongue of a man of Gondor. When Captain Faramir found me at the pool of Henneth Annun- where we go now- he rightly should have killed me, as rightly he should have killed your friend- Frodo?- for such are his orders. But the Lord Faramir is not a man to kill needlessly, or in haste. He is a great man," Jonathan said softly, "such as we no longer have in our time." He paused a moment before going on. "Instead, he spared me and put me under the tutelage of his rangers that patrol these forests. I have been becoming a woodsman, these past months, and they called me 'Baran', which they tell me is Elvish for 'golden brown'. For my hair."
"Of course," Rhian said, and reached up to run her hand over the thick curls, dark waves grown long and unruly, and sun-streaked with lighter strands. She was with part of her family again, and the thought warmed her. "This place is well suited to you," she said reflectively. "It has soaked in to your speech. I would say it has surrounded you with an air of lordship, but when I think back you were always thus."
He grinned at her. "Your speech, as well, cousin," he said. Rhian smiled. "Even now I am half certain it is a dream," he went on. "But with you here it seems more real. No...it is not here that is more real. I have been forgetting, as Baran of the Rangers, what Jonathan of the future was."
He fell silent, and Rhian, weary, let her head fall against his shoulder. Faramir looking back saw her sleeping in Baran's arms and nodded to the younger man. They made faster time now, and soon the woods thinned about them and they came to a small river in a narrow gorge. Here Faramir stopped.
"Alas!" he said. "Here I must do you a discourtesy." As he spoke, Rhian stirred and woke, and Jonathan set her gently on her feet. "I hope you will pardon it to one who has so far made his orders give way to courtesy so as not to bind you or kill you. But it is the command that no stranger, not even one of Rohan that fights with us, shall see the path we now go with open eyes. I must blindfold you."
Jonathan took a green scarf and bound it carefully around Rhian's eyes, while the same was done to her companions. Then they set out again, Jonathan guiding her gently, picking her up again often. At last, after many turns going up and down, Rhian heard the sound of rushing water, and felt a fine mist settling on her skin. "Let them see!" she heard Faramir say. The green cloth fell away from her eyes and she gasped.
They stood on a wet floor of polished stone, the doorstep, as it were, of a rough-hewn gate of rock opening dark behind them. But in front a thin veil of water was hung, so near that Frodo could have put an outstretched arm into it. It faced westward. The level shafts of the setting sun behind beat upon it, and the red light was broken into many flickering beams of ever-changing color. It was as if they stood at the window of some elven-tower, curtained with threaded jewels of silver and gold, and ruby, sapphire and amethyst, all kindled with an unconsuming fire.
"At least by good chance we have come at the right hour to reward you for your patience," Faramir said. "This is the Window of the Sunset, Henneth Annun, fairest of all the falls of Ithilien, land of many fountains. Few strangers have ever seen it."
"It is beautiful," Rhian whispered.
"Aye," Faramir said, "but there is no kingly hall behind it to match. Enter now and see!"
A/N: Some information, to help anyone confused about the timeline- I am presenting the stories of Rhian and Erin as if they were parallel, but actually they're a little out of sync. By the time Rhian and Aria reach the Dead Marshes (March 1), Erin has already met Eomer and been rescued from the orcs (Febuary 28). Rhian and Aria are one day behind Sam and Frodo, who of course go through the Marshes, coming out on March 2 and going on towards the Towers of the Teeth. Rhian and Aria, circling around the Dead Marshes, take a little longer, getting away from the Marshes on March 4. By that date, Frodo was already practically at the Towers, saw the gates on the 5th, and then turned south towards Ithilien and Cirith Ungol. Rhian and Aria do not go to the Towers- instead they cut a line across the downs south-east of the path Frodo took, meeting his fresh trail on the outskirts of Ithilien on the 6th, and so coming in to Ithilien right on his heels. I worked all this out with the help of the Atlas of Middle Earth so as to be as professional as possible. And playing with the maps is fun.
Stay tuned for our next episode, Erin in Edoras!