Black hour

I

To hold rod and rule in the name of the King, until he shall return.

Twenty-six Stewards of Gondor had taken that oath before I took it today, and never thought that any King would return in their lifetime, save Pelendur only, who spoke against the claim of the last king of Arnor, before their race faded into the shadows of the North, and we ceased to hold them of any account.

There was never much ceremony in the making of a new Steward, because we kept always to the fiction that we were mere caretakers. There is neither feasting nor magnificence, but only a gathering of the captains of the fiefs to renew their allegiance to the absent King through the King's servant. But, as Gondor must be ruled, the Stewards wielded all the powers of the Kings and the oath became empty words.

When I spoke them today, they were full again, and bitter in the mouth.

… in the name of the King, until he shall return.

After the oath came silence, but a silence full of questions. At that time I would not answer them, but tomorrow an answer must be given, when the Captains gather again for the Great Council.

I am alone now, save for a few servants, in the chill echoing emptiness of the Steward's house. I would like to retreat to the little tower room I shared for so many years with my brother, which was our eyrie, our stronghold and our refuge, but there can be no retreating from where I now am. Presently I must seek my comfortless bed in my father's great chamber, but unless mind and body are both exhausted I shall be unable to sleep there. Meanwhile I shall sit here, in the austere book-lined room where as a child I was called so often for reproof and correction, and think.

It is getting dark, but I shall not call for lights yet. I would see nothing more clearly if I did.

Half the house has been sealed and empty for thirty years, since my mother died. My father had the door to her apartments sealed, and his seal is still there, untouched. Maybe no other lady will ever call for it to be unsealed, for there is only one I would ask to do so, and she will not hear me. Maybe, after tomorrow, I shall surrender my office and close this whole house and put my seal on the door, and go forth from Minas Tirith.

… until he shall return.

Has the King now returned indeed? Was this the meaning of the dream that troubled my nights and our counsels and sent my brother to his death?

Seven days ago the message came from Cormallen, under the hand and seal not of the king – that seal still lies undisturbed in the King's archives in the White Tower – but of Imrahil: 'The King returns to Gondor. Let the King's servant make ready.'

As so often with Imrahil, the words meant more than they said, or rather, they could be taken two ways. His mind works like my father's, like mine, unlike my poor brother's. ('Why can you never say anything straight?)

The King comes. Let his servant prepare a welcome for him.

One comes to claim the kingship. The Stewards have ruled Gondor for a thousand years. What do you say now to this claim, Steward of Gondor?

And behind Imrahil's double message lies a third, a message from the one whom some call the king Elessar: the message of his silence.

I claim the kingship which you hold in trust. See, for this time I hold my hand and give you one chance to act. Will you yield it willingly, or must I come and take it by force?

I wrote back to both in the same vein: 'Let the rejoicings be long on the field of Cormallen.'

Let this victory be celebrated as it deserves.

For all our sakes, give me time.

If it were myself only, would I hesitate? I never looked to rule Gondor, but only to stand beside the ruling Steward and offer him what support and counsel he was willing to take from his most loving brother and servant.

It is not dispossession I fear. Gondor is not a possession to be jealously guarded, but a trust to be faithfully kept, and when the time comes, surrendered.

The question is whether the one who now calls for that surrender has a just claim, and if so, whether my people – for my people they are, until tomorrow at least – will accept it.

They say he has the healing hands. They say that if he had not called me back I would have scarcely outlived my father, and his way to the throne would have been clear for our part. Was he so sure of his claim that he could let me live to challenge it?

They say I called him king on my awakening, though I have no memory of it. From the darkness of the Pelennor to the dim returning light of the houses of healing, all is a blank. By the time I was properly aware of the world again, they were gone, Mithrandir and Imrahil and the one who calls himself king. The one who holds my lady's heart in the hollow of his hand, and sets no value on it. But none of that is proof of his claim.

Rumours, as ever, fly round the City. Some say that when the Black Gate fell, King Eärnur, who was lost there a thousand years ago, rode forth from the ruins and now leads his armies homeward in triumph. Others say our army was led to Mordor by a pirate captain out of Umbar who abjured his allegiance to the Nameless One in the great battle and now seeks to subject all Gondor to his rule, in revenge for our long domination of his city. I believe the one tale as little as the other.

The third tale is vouched for by the halfling – not the one to whom, apparently, I owe my life, but the other, who was hurt in the battle. There seems no lie in what he says, and much good sense. He speaks of a strange wanderer of ruffianly appearance and kingly resolve, by some called Strider, by others Aragorn, of the royal line of Arnor, the same man as was named by the halfling Frodo. Frodo's claim I dismissed at the time as wild imagining, or a deliberate attempt to deceive; and later events drove it from my mind. What did I say to Frodo then? 'So great a claim will have to be established, and clear proofs will be required, should this Aragorn come to Minas Tirith.'

And it appears that he did come, but whether he proved his claim is another matter. I can find no evidence that he did so, or even tried to do so, being concerned above all to lead a last attack on the forces of the Nameless, and holding himself no higher than a captain of war under the direction of Mithrandir. Whatever his ultimate intention, he showed both wisdom and prudence at that time. Had he advanced his claim then, it would have led to strife as deadly as any the Enemy could have unleashed on us.

He comes now at the head of a victorious army, in close alliance with Rohan who provided a good part of that army. It seems he holds the king of Rohan's heart as securely as that of the king of Rohan's sister.

Our gates are shattered and our defences a mere token. We cannot withstand him by force of arms. What need does he have of proof? A victorious sword is more persuasive than any proof advanced by the wisest of lore-masters.

Yet amidst the rumours, the people murmur. Bergil, in his innocence, relayed the murmurs to me even before I discharged myself from the Warden's keeping. 'Sir, when my father comes back, they say he will have to submit to judgement for leaving his post without permission. You won't judge him harshly, will you, Sir? You understand why he did it?'

He had complete confidence in me. The serenity of his face wounded me, but I told him the truth as I saw it.

'It may not be for me to judge.'

His expression changed. 'You mean that what so many people are saying is true? We are to have a king again?'

'It seems so.'

'But why? Why do we need a king? We have done very well under the Stewards all these years. We knew the Lord Denethor and the Lord Boromir and we know you, and you know us. We want you for our Steward. A king would be a stranger, he wouldn't understand. What will happen to you? And what will he do to my father?'

I answered only the second question. 'Bergil, believe me, if any harm comes to your father it will be over my dead body. That I swear. Have patience, now, and all may be well.'

He looked relieved, but not wholly reassured. It troubled me, but I could not speak with a certainty I did not feel. When I began to go about the city again, I realised how much doubt and apprehension accompanied the joy of deliverance from the Shadow. Many wished only to return to the Gondor they had known, which was the Gondor of the Stewards. Many of the Captains wish the same. There will be trouble tomorrow at the Great Council.

My kindred have ruled this city for a thousand years. Our lives are not our own; we are pledged to Gondor from our birth – no, our conception – and loaned back to ourselves thereafter at a high rate of interest in the coin of blood and devotion. What is best for Gondor, that I shall do.

For a thousand years we have nursed its strength in time of peace, and defended it in time of war. We learned wisdom, and we learned war. When assailed, we beat back our foes, or if forced back by overwhelming numbers, we retrenched, and again stood firm. When our allies deserted us we found fresh ones. If there were none to find, we stood alone. If our walls were breached, we built them up again with our blood for mortar. While the heirs of Elendil tore themselves to pieces in the wars of Arnor, the Stewards preserved the kingdom of Elendil in the South. When the race of their kings faded into the shadows, the Stewards stood in the light.

Yet the kingdom we keep is also the kingdom of Elendil. If Elendil's heir has arisen again, it is for him that we have kept it.

The kingdom of Elendil, or of Anárion? The last time an heir of Isildur claimed the throne of Gondor, he was rejected.

I have re-read the records of that ancient council so many times that I can quote every word from memory. They rejected Arvedui's claim because it came through the female line only, and because they held the dividing of the Kingdoms to be irrevocable. Neither argument is unassailable, despite the force with which Pelendur advanced them, but neither was obviously false. Mercifully, the debate between the two kingdoms never led to war, but neither was it ever resolved.

I stand now in Pelendur's place, the last of the Stewards of his line, and where he stood firm, I must give way. His arguments are neither stronger nor weaker now than they were then, but his strongest argument is not to my hand. He could propose as king one who, if not of the direct line, had royal blood enough, when coupled with a victorious sword.

No one in Gondor now has royal blood enough to make a king, and the victorious sword is in the hand of this chieftain of Arnor.

One who did not fear to challenge the Nameless one at his own gate, will not fear to challenge Gondor.

I have no choice.

II

The thing is done, and word sent to the king.

The councillors and captains were angry, many – most – of them, as I knew they would be. Some would have had me answer as Pelendur did, and take the consequences. It seems that they fear change only a little less than they feared the Dark Lord.

They looked at me in anger, an anger that I could not resent because I knew it for the darker side of their loyalty. They told me that neither Denethor my father nor Boromir my brother would have given away Gondor so lightly. I reminded them that they were dealing neither with my father nor with my brother but with me. None said openly that they regretted it, but the thought was plain in their eyes.

The old arguments were revived and passed back and forth, uselessly. I spoke of our broken gates, our scattered defences, our armies ranged behind the one who would be king. Still some of them called for resistance. Called, and in the end, pleaded. Stand firm, they said, and we are with you. Give way, and you betray yourself and us.

I let them talk themselves hoarse, as my father always did with his cold, inscrutable patience, and then followed my own mind, as he always did.

'Gentlemen,' I said, 'you speak as if you had a choice. I tell you you have none. I alone have a choice, and it is made. I hold this kingdom in trust for the king, and I believe that the king has now returned. Accordingly I propose to send word to the Lord Aragorn that as Steward of Gondor I recognise his claim as the heir of Elendil, and will resign the rule of this kingdom into his hand.'

I waited for the protests to die down and then said, 'Either that, or I resign the Stewardship here and now and leave Minas Tirith as a common citizen of Gondor, and you may deal with the Lord Aragorn as you yourselves think best.'

They all knew as well as I did that if I did not assume the leadership of the resistance to Aragorn, then there would be no resistance. They snarled, but in the end they agreed, and left for the most part in silence. Only Elphir, standing in for his father Imrahil, hesitated and turned back and said quietly, 'You are a brave man, cousin.'

'Scarcely,' I replied, 'but perhaps I have the sense to know when I have my back to the wall.'

He smiled briefly, and went out after the others.

I sent another message to Imrahil: 'The king's servant awaits the coming of the king.'

So, it is done. The last of the Stewards of Gondor has done his last duty save one, which is to receive the King and surrender his office. And what then?

When you know you are fighting a hopeless war, you lose the habit of looking far into the future, in case there is no future. And when your path in life was laid down inexorably before your birth, you do not question it. I knew – I cannot remember a time when I did not know – that one day soon Gondor would fall to the Enemy, and I would die fighting in its last defence. Or, if by some miracle Gondor did not fall in my lifetime, then for the rest of my life I would do what I had always done, serve Gondor, and my father as Steward of Gondor, and my brother as Steward after him. If my brother were to die – and I feared that prospect rather more than I feared the fall of Gondor – then I should be the Steward and do the best I could.

Now there is a future, but my brother is gone and the Stewardship also. What is left for me?

There are many things I can do. With a little more study – there was never enough time for it when I was a boy – I could make a lore-master, if the king feels the need of such. I can write a fair hand and decipher a crabbed one; I would make a tolerable secretary.

Most likely the king will not wish one to remain in the city who once ruled it – however briefly – and still commands the hearts of the people. Better to go elsewhere. I can use a sword, a spear and a bow, and ride a horse; I could sell my services as a soldier, if there is still fighting to be done, as seems likely.

Or I could go back to Ithilien and seek out my family's old estates, and farm them. A humble calling maybe, but a good one, to make things grow, instead of killing and destroying. I am not ignorant of it; as a boy on holiday I learned to cut hay and manage a plough team, and give not altogether inexpert assistance at a calving. They always said I had a way with beasts.

The fire took my father and the water took my brother; it seems fitting that I should till the earth and, at the end, let it take me.

They say a farmer needs a wife. Perhaps I should now go to my lady and offer her my hand, my heart, and some acres of land in Ithilien that have not been tilled these hundred years, infested for a certainty with orcs and brigands, and somewhere within those tangled acres a house whose ruins sank into the grass a thousand years ago. A fine offer, for one who dreams of being queen of Gondor. She is a proud woman. I would not have her otherwise; there is nothing about her that I would have otherwise. But as she is, she will not have me. There are other women, of course, but not for me. Never for me.

To speak and to be silent, to do and to let be, to come and to go, in need or plenty, in peace or war, in living or dying, from this hour henceforth, until my lord release me, or death take me, or the world end.

I have no more to say. It is for the king to speak.