"Tell me, Denethor," asked Lord Ecthelion, looking up from the hearth, into which he had been staring thoughtfully, "what did you see in that accursed stone of wizardry?"

"You know better than I do, father, the power of the Unnamed – for you have spent a lifetime battling it. But I …I saw it for the first time today. And I could feel it – I could feel his will working against mine. And I fought it like a stray dog on the street – snarling, biting, and straining my every nerve against it. It was no use… I saw only what he wanted me to see - his huge armies, his great weapons, his strange, mysterious powers - and I was afraid."

There was a gentle knock at the door.

"It must be Finduilas," said Denethor. "Looking for Faramir…"

Lord Ecthelion opened the door. "Come in, my child, they are here."

Finduilas smiled up at Denethor's father. "I am sorry that you were disturbed, father," she said, although she knew that no apology was needed. Lord Ecthelion loved the company of both Boromir and Faramir at any time of day or night.

"Nay," he said, smiling. "It was a pleasure to have them here with me. And while I know that you must take your baby with you, I ask your permission to keep mine here for the night."

"I don't understand…oh, I do!" She burst out laughing. "It's just that I somehow cannot think of him as a baby, father."

Lord Ecthelion smiled. "I always thought that the nickname his friends gave him, when he was a boy, was most appropriate…"

"A nickname? But I do not know it…"

"Did he never tell you? He was called 'Venom' …"

Finduilas' clear laugh rang out again as she gently took Faramir from Denethor's arms.

"Good night, Venom," she said.

"Ah, father, why did you tell her about that," asked Denethor. But his eyes were smiling as he kissed her goodnight.

"Good night, father," said Finduilas.

"Good night, my child," said Lord Ecthelion kindly, and waited at the door until she was out of sight.

Turning back into the room, he found that his son had got out of bed and was restlessly pacing the room.

"Get back into bed, Denethor."

"It's no use. I haven't slept for weeks…"

"What has been worrying you? I've noticed that you've been restless, preoccupied…"

"It's not any one thing… it seems like everywhere I look, things are breaking up, falling apart… the very city we live in - under threat from a power to great for a mortal man to vanquish… Finduilas – I see her becoming weaker, more fragile every day…Boromir – growing up so sullen, so hostile… and you father – why do you keep saying, over and over again, that you're not going to live much longer…
I see myself – without you, without Finduilas, without my sons…watching Minas Tirith burning to the ground and then slinking away to some stinking hole in the wilderness, there to hide myself…
Father – what a horrible day today has been."

Denethor clenched his fists and drew a deep breath. It would not do to give in to despair. But how much simpler life had been when he was "Venom" – those had been good days, when the only problem he'd had to solve was figuring out what game to play with his friends that day…

"You remember when I was Venom, father?"

Those were the days when there had always been someone to put things right when they went wrong…he would run to his mother, or more often, his father. It was odd, the things he remembered now… the fresh, clean smell of his father's white linen tunic as he leaned his face against its softness; and the sound of his father's voice… it had been a different voice then - gentle, humorous and kindly…

Almost without thinking, he said aloud, "Father, what happened since then?"

Lord Ecthelion sighed. "Perhaps I asked too much of you…"

"Father, do you remember the first time you sent me to Osgiliath as your Captain?"

"Yes, but…"

"I'll never forget the way you looked at me on my return…" Denethor remembered again the cold, stern eyes that rebuked him for his first failure… "Speaking as the Steward of Gondor to his Captain, you said that I was the most inexperienced, inept Captain that ever served Gondor…"

"Denethor, must you remember and forever repeat every unkind word I have ever regretted uttering?"

"You may voice your displeasure to those who are casual and careless in carrying out your commands…" Denethor's voice shook with anger. "…but how could you do that to me… father, I put my heart and soul into every task you ever set me. You've changed so much…"

Denethor felt a hand on his shoulder as he glared out of the window into the darkness. His father's touch turned into an embrace. Out of the mists of the distant past, a familiar presence had materialised into the present and become real again. Venom's kindly father, who had for many years been replaced by a grim military taskmaster, suddenly stood beside him again, comforting him in his anger and his pain. "Where did you come from," asked Denethor,"I missed you so much…"

"Venom," said Lord Ecthelion, gently, "I could have fussed over you and coddled you and brought you up to be a coward of the greatest renown – would you have preferred that?"

"Yes," said Denethor, grinning into the fresh–smelling white linen. Lord Ecthelion smiled and shook his head in amusement. He gave his son a mock cuff on the ear and set him free.

"Denethor," he said a moment later, rather more seriously, "There is something I would like you to know…"

"What is it, father?"

"Denethor, you will no longer put your heart and soul into trying to be what I want you to be… but I will give everything I have to help you be what you want to be."

Whatever Denethor had expected to hear, it had not been this. He smiled suddenly at his father. "If I'm going to spend the night with you," he said, in a somewhat shaky voice, "I'll need to hear a story, or at least a song…"

He got into bed and looked up at his father expectantly. Lord Ecthelion cleared his throat, and fell silent again, feeling somewhat embarrassed to tell a child's story to his adult son. He smiled at his son, cleared his throat again, and with the air of a poet declaiming a great work, began:

"Stinker, Venom and Blob one night
Sailed to sea in a shoe -
Sailed on a river of crystal light
Into a sea of dew…"

Bobbing along on the current of his father's gentle voice, Denethor drifted off into peaceful sleep. And in his dreams, a little boy with a toy sword went out to sea in a giant wooden shoe with billowing yellow sails and a plain silver standard fluttering in the wind. On his travels he and his trusty companions, Stinker and Blob, fearlessly took on golden dragons, purple trolls and green goblins, and vanquished them, every one.

Venom sailed again.

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Lord Ecthelion's poem is a quotation from "Wynken, Blynken and Nod (Dutch Lullaby)" by Eugene Field, from his collection "Poems of Childhood."