I'd like to acknowledge the help of Beren Elaran, whose beautiful Sindarin translation appears in this chapter. He has translated the song "All through the Night," (adapt. and arr. by Yarrow / Stookey / Travers) from the album "Peter, Paul and Mommy" by Peter, Paul and Mary. Thank you, Beren Elaran!

The Steward's Son
Chapter 7

As he strode away, Lord Ecthelion paused for a moment to look up at Minas Anor, now glowing rosy-hued as the sun sank low to the west of Mount Mindolluin.

At the top of the tower, Denethor leaned on the stone window sill, watching the fiery orb of the sun sink slowly down towards the white mountains, painting the sky in lurid, shrieking shades of melon, pink and gold. This, thought Denethor, was how an artist would paint a scream. A streak of painfully vivid colour cutting through the dull leaden sky like a knife. A slash here, a slash there, in a mouldy grey curtain : the colour bleeding out of the gaping rents and gashes like pain made visible, liquid fire that dazzled his eyes, hurting them with its luminous intensity. He turned away, shading his eyes, and some minutes later found himself aimlessly walking the stone streets of Minas Tirith, watching the windows of the great stone city light up as darkness fell.

A gust of wind swirled around him, pleasantly cool, as he walked the familiar streets of the city he loved. The inky slopes of Mindolluin rose up behind the great walled city and the vast fields of the Pelennor lay spread out at her feet. Now, in the darkening twilight, Minas Tirith looked beautiful – her stone walls splashed with warm, flickering lamplight, her streets silvered by the cool white rays of the moon.

"Finduilas," breathed Denethor, drinking in the sights and sounds of Minas Tirith in the twilight, "…oh, Finduilas, why do you not love Minas Tirith as I do?"

He saw the star of Eärendil hanging low in the west. "And look," he said, still talking to her, although she wasn't there, "…look, Finduilas, Gil Estel shines on Minas Tirith, filling our hearts with hope…"

Denethor leaned out over a low stone wall and looked out into the night. All was still now. Above and below him shone the warm yellow lamps and candles of Minas Tirith. It was a cool, clear night and the moon hung like a disc of polished silver in the velvety black vault of the sky. The sky was so clear tonight…he could see hundreds, millions of stars…

"A Elbereth Gilthoniel…"

Denethor retraced his steps, and started to walk back… past the glowing lamplit windows of valiant warriors, garrulous grandmothers and softly sleeping children. The people of Minas Tirith. He would give everything he had and more to keep them safe.

Coming to his own window, Denethor stopped and looked up at it, his face bathed in the warm glow that diffused out of it into the still night air. Denethor breathed in the scent of Finduilas' honeysuckle vine, and watched the fireflies twinkle in and out of it, like tiny stars.

He knew they were in there –they made a beautiful picture in his mind's eye – Finduilas with both sons held close, all three of them, fast asleep. He walked inside, and the picture was real.

She was asleep – he could hear her soft breathing. All night, she would drift through dreams of magnolias and wisteria and white lilies glowing in the moonlight. And in the morning, she would wake, fresh and at peace with the world. And as the warm sunlight would start to filter into the room through the honeysuckle vine, she would look at him, and she would smile.

He bent down to kiss her, but the baby was in the way, so he kissed Faramir instead.

That was a mistake. Faramir got up with a start and wailed in outraged anguish at having been thus rudely awoken.

"No… don't get up, I'll take care of him," said Denethor to Finduilas. He scooped the baby up in his arms and ran out of the room with him, trying to get him out of Finduilas' earshot, so she could go back to sleep.

He helplessly wandered the stone corridors, the moonlight slanting in through the massive windows, trying to soothe and calm his angry son.

"Sh, shhh, Faramir," he whispered desperately, "You'll wake your mother…"

"And your grandfather, too," said a quiet voice behind him.

"I'm sorry, father," said Denethor, wildly rocking the screaming bundle. "Did he wake you?"

Lord Ecthelion shook his head, as he gently took his anguished grandson from his equally anguished son. "No, not at all," he said. "I wasn't asleep…"

He gently laid the baby's head on his shoulder and stroked the tiny form. The volume of Faramir's wails began to lessen almost immediately. Denethor staggered wearily into his father's room and flopped down onto his father's bed, burying his face in the pillow and pulling his father's blanket up over his ears to shut out the sound of Faramir's shrill, insistent wails. But soon, the baby began to quieten down as Lord Ecthelion sang softly to him in the elven tongue.

"Losto hên nín, le tolo sîdh, trî, trî i dhû
Elbereth le beriatha, trî, trî i dhû"

Something about the song held his attention – strangely, he seemed to know every word of it…

"Dínen i lui gwannol
Amon ah imloth mi lostad caedol
Im, mellon nín, dirith hebiel, trî, trî i dhû"

But how did he know the words? Could his father have sung it to him as a child? Somehow he could not imagine himself being rocked as tenderly as his father was rocking Faramir now. Or could he?

"Calad Ithil penna na le, trî, trî i dhû
Ned lostad lín tiriel le, trî, trî i dhû"

Softly, hesitantly, he began to sing along. His father turned and smiled, still gently stroking the baby's little back.

"Dínen i lui gwannol
Amon ah imloth mi lostad caedol"

Could it be, wondered Lord Ecthelion, that his son still remembered a song that he had sung to him when he was a child? No… perhaps he had learnt it recently from Finduilas…

"Im, mellon nín, dirith hebiel, trî, trî i dhû"

Lord Ecthelion gently lowered the baby onto the bed, next to his son, who hurriedly moved out of the way.

"Nay, stay, my child. Would you not like him to sleep beside you?"

Denethor got out of bed, carefully avoiding the baby. "I'd love to, father, but he wouldn't. I… I just kissed him, and he started howling like that…"

Lord Ecthelion sensed that this trivial incident had somehow upset his son more than anything else that had happened that day.

"He was just sleepy, that's all."

"No, father… this one hates me as much as the other one does… and I was hoping so much that he wouldn't…"

Denethor sat down in front of the fire, his head bowed down on his knees. "I don't understand what they want from me… and I don't know how to give it to them…"

Lord Ecthelion placed a reassuring hand on his son's back. Denethor's shoulders were shaking, trembling. "Losto hên nín," he said softly.

"What does that mean, father?"

"When Finduilas taught you the song, didn't she teach you what it meant?"

"I didn't learn it from her…"

"You remember it, then, after so long…" Lord Ecthelion instinctively stroked his son's back forgetting for a moment that Denethor was no longer a baby, but was in fact a cynical adult with a biting tongue and a mocking smile.

"What does it mean," he asked again.

"I'll sing you my translation of it," said Lord Ecthelion, "but why don't you get into bed first…"

Denethor rather reluctantly got into bed beside his son, half expecting him to burst into loud wails again. To his utter amazement, Faramir smiled in his sleep, and snuggled up close to his father's warmth, his tiny fist grabbing a small handful of his father's tunic.

Denethor held the precious bundle close to him, savouring, drinking in the baby acceptance of him like fine wine that went to his head, and made him feel ridiculously elated.

"I don't think he hates me after all…"

Lord Ecthelion smiled. "Of course not. When they're young, it's so easy… all it takes is a story, a song or a hug… But when they get older, it's so much more difficult."

Denethor looked up sharply. Was this an accusation of sorts? He could not see his father's face. Lord Ecthelion stared unseeingly into the fire, his back to his son.

"Father… all it takes is… if it were possible…"

Denethor paused. This was an earnest request, and he did not want it to sound like an accusation.

"Yes?"

His father was looking at him, now.

"… if you could take away the burden, the pressure of your expectations…"

Lord Ecthelion looked at his son thoughtfully. But Denethor was apparently staring with great interest at something outside the window.

"When my son was an infant," said Lord Ecthelion, "I would take him in my arms and I would dream… I would dream of him growing up to be a tall, kingly warrior with a bright sword, brave and valiant. Tell me, my son, was it wrong for a father to dream of his son's greatness, and to work with him to achieve it…
I remember the times when I would ride back from Osgiliath, or Cair Andros, or from… wherever I'd been, and I'd try to look courageous, for my men, but I'd be inwardly weeping. Not out of weariness, or the great pain of my battle-wounds, but out of despair… despair at the great strength of the power that I was to spend my life battling…
And I would think of my tiny son, sleeping in his little cradle at home, and I would curse the enemy, curse him thus… 'One day,' I would say, 'when my son is Steward of Gondor, you will be broken, you will be destroyed!'"

"Father, no mortal could ever be strong enough to stand up to that power…I understood that today, when I looked into the seeing stone."

"Perhaps it was foolish, or wrong, to hope that I could build you up to be strong enough to take on that power and defeat it. But…" Lord Ecthelion suddenly looked his son straight in the eye. "But what is the alternative, my son? Are we to stand by, cowering in fear as he waxes in strength? Should we not arm ourselves to stand up to him?"

Denethor nodded, thoughtfully. So this was the reason why his father had pushed him beyond the limits of his endurance. He had always thought that it was because his father was ashamed of him…

"And you have seen, Denethor," said Lord Ecthelion,"how hard I have worked to build our army in strength… I have recruited men from the far corners of Middle Earth – worthy men, warriors, brave and strong…"

"And looking at all these fine new soldiers, you could not help but notice how weak and inept your own son looked beside them," said Denethor.

Lord Ecthelion stared into the fire again, a look of indescribable pain in his dark eyes. He could not with truth deny what his son had said.

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All through the Night

Original lyrics

Sleep my child and peace attend thee, all through the night.
Guardian angels God will send thee, all through the night.
Soft the drowsy hours are creeping,
Hill and dale in slumber steeping
I, my loved one, watch am keeping, all through the night.

Angels watching ever 'round thee, all through the night
In thy slumbers close surround thee, all through the night
Soft the drowsy hours are creeping,
Hill and dale in slumber steeping
I, my loved one, watch am keeping, all through the night.

Translation, by Beren Elaran

Losto hên nín, le tolo sîdh, trî, trî i dhû.
Sleep child mine, (to) thee come peace, through, through the night.

Elbereth le beriatha, trî, trî i dhû.
Elbereth thee will guard, through, through the night.

Dínen i lui gwannol
Silently the hours departing,

Amon ah imloth mi lostad caedol.
Hill and valley amid sleep lying.

Im, mellon nín, dirith hebiel, trî, trî i dhû.
I, love mine, watch (am) keeping, through, through the night.

Calad Ithil penna na le, trî, trî i dhû.
Light of Moon slants-down by you, through, through the night.

Ned lostad lín tiriel le, trî, trî i dhû.
During sleep yours watching you, through, through the night.

Dínen i lui gwannol,
Amon ah imloth mi lostad caedol.
Im, mellon nín, tirith hebiel, trî, trî i dhû.

caeda- is a reconstructed verb from Q caita- by David Salo.