The forest was quiet now. No birdsong after the yells. Darkness lingered among the leaves and swallowed what few tentative sunbeams contended with it. The air was stifling after the fight. The stench of death. 'Orc blood and rotten leaves,' Boromir thought. 'And I am lying among them. Is this all my life has come to? Ruin. The Fellowship. Our task. The White City. My life. Ruin.'
He did not want to think any more, to breathe any more. He did not want to get up. Failed. He had failed. Failed when he tried to take the Ring from Frodo, and failed even when he tried to make up for it, to give his strength and valour for the other Halflings. It had all proved in vain.
A tired, sweaty face swam into his field of vision, dark against the pale grey sky. Aragorn. The ranger who claimed to be king. Perhaps he was. It did not matter now. 'Too late,' Boromir thought wearily. 'You weren't there when I needed you. None of you. Your words cannot help me now.'
"You have fought bravely."
How could he judge that? It had been no more than compensation, or maybe even less, a reckless act of abandon. It had all started much earlier anyway. Hope had left him long ago, like a will-o'-the-wisp he had decided to chase no longer on its random and erratic flight. He did not know if these arrow wounds were deadly, and maybe he could still make it, be restored somehow to creep on through this dull bogland called life. But he was so fed up with it all. Wherefore fight any longer to stay awake in this pain? It was all for nothing. Wherefore belong to this any longer? It was all the same to him. He closed his eyes and retreated to some remote corner of his being, small as a nut kernel.
"Be at peace, Son of Gondor."
Peace? Bitterness flooded the remains of his soul, a brackish water of lifelong remembrance. Who had ever given him peace? Allowed him to feel at home? Loved him for who he was, without demanding performance?
His father certainly not. Denethor had always taken pride in his son's achievements and progress, but let him feel his disappointment acutely when Boromir had failed to keep up with his expectations. He was his father's favourite, all right, but not for who he was deep down himself. The first-born, that was what he represented, the role of the ever-strong and ever-responsible he had to stick to. He had been given into the hands of tutors, teachers and swordsmen to be made a fit successor for the Steward, while his father – a mighty ruler always closeted with his counsellors or away on some battlefield, too busy to cuddle a little boy who had to be hardened into independence, weaned from womanish feelings anyway – had been little more than a legend; one of his storybook heroes, the one he could be especially proud of. Yet, in his loneliness, to him it had felt as if his father had been away on a distant planet. As if he did not have a father at all.
And his mother? Even before he lost her at the age of ten, she had been so wrapped up in her own grief that he could not reach her. Her soul always more in Dol Amroth than with him. Fragile, lonely, homesick Finduilas – he had never dared to burden her with his problems for fear she might break like a reed. Or retract even further into her melancholy.
There had been women in his life, but had they really loved Boromir? They had adored the Captain of Gondor, courted the favour of Denethor's favourite, worshipped muscles and good looks and masculinity and heroism. Finglas for instance. Always eager to boast with him before others, she had derided him when he showed weakness, when he wanted to let himself go, to weep. She had always wanted to change him, to fashion him after an ideal image stored in her mind. Well, looking back, he had never really loved any of them either. Not truly. At least none of them had been able to fill the vacuum in his heart, that empty, aching space which had always driven him to seek, to search – he did not even know exactly for what.
Random scenes from his life now flashed across his mind, racing into his consciousness and exploding there like fireworks. Niniel upbraiding him for being gallant, for being himself. Driven by unfounded, senseless jealousy. His own jealousy in return, when he had noticed her growing close to Faramir, a secret bond of companionship evolving between them. How his anger had flared up, obliterating any other feeling. Breakers of pride clashing on cliffs of pride, and then retreating undefeated, foaming with misgivings.
Himself shouting at Amrodel, every word a whiplash on her soul, a hit aimed cruelly well. Her hands stretched out to him, begging for forgiveness, his face averted, cold and unapproachable. And afterwards the regret, the wish to unsay words. Cursing his stupid pride which had kept him from running after her, from granting forgiveness. The urge to be forgiven in return.
Making love to Ríanwen. How dirty he had felt afterwards, how he had despised himself. He had never loved her, only taken her on for want of someone better, only obliged. The wish to undo things.
The moment when he had heard of his mother's death. Before his mind's eye he now saw the tapestry in the hall at Minas Tirith as he had seen and not seen it then (dogs and hunters in red embroidered tunics and white horses and a running hare without a chance of escape). A bewildered boy of ten, he had desperately fixed his eyes on this to shut out what he knew could not be shut out, refusing to comprehend what he comprehended only too well. Every detail of that tapestry kept sticking in his mind for ever after. The emptiness he had felt. How those woven pictures, the wall behind them, the hall, the whole palace seemed to crumble around him in noiseless, muffled ruin, to dissolve into grey dust settling on his feet, his lungs, his orphaned life.
Still further back, that moment in the hall at night when his parents had shouted at each other for the first time in what was more than a mere quarrel – the hatred in their voices, the hurt in Finduilas' eyes, the hardness in Denethor's. Much earlier already he had intuited their estrangement, but never knew, not even now, when and why it had started. Above all, he could not understand, neither forgive himself, why he had not managed to glue them together again, all of them, into a happy family. Even now he felt the blame, the rejection, the failure, as acutely as when he had laid that responsibility upon himself, impersonated that expectation. Boromir, useless Boromir, was not worth an effort at reconciliation.
The hall again. Boromir in his best clothes, receiving his first sword from his father. He could feel the pride in Denethor's eyes. How he had held it up, his sword, how it had glittered as the blade had caught the reflection of the hearth fire, how he himself had burned with eagerness to prove worthy of his father's trust. One of the few happy moments in his life. The thought of it only made him sadder now.
Himself and Faramir running over a meadow near Firien Wood. It was his birthday, and they were chasing grasshoppers. Again he could smell the aromatic scent of trodden grass and herbs, hear the chirping of the cicadas, see the yellow glare the summer sun had cast over everything, and sense the carefree happiness that had filled him then. What had it taken to turn a happy child into a miserable man?
The moment when they told him his little sister had died. Died before she was born. No one said it, but he knew it was because his mother had tended him in his light sickness, spent all her energy on little Borry who now at last claimed the attention he felt was his due. A sister! He would have loved her, protected her. Now he never even got to know her. Was that when he had started to hate himself?
Then the devious face of Belegor, who had taken advantage of him, blackmailed him for years to do dirty jobs for him, corrupting his mind and breaking his will, all under the guise of being his friend, of letting him share in a brotherhood. How could he allow himself to be pushed to such lengths of humiliation, only to be accepted by others? Was that when he had started despising himself?
Himself alone in that glade near Amon Dîn, in Druadan Forest at dusk, brooding over his life. The whole weight of this crooked world on his heart, pressing it down, the pressure accumulating, oppressing his mind, his senses, threatening to burst his veins, until he could not but let blood, anything to ease the unbearable pressure. How he had closed his fist around the blade of his knife and pressed, tried to squeeze out all that disgusting, soiled self. It had only been the start of a hopeless race against pain. And the relief afterwards had never lasted long.
The guys in the Guard, playing dice and cracking rough jokes. Sucking up to him as long as they hoped to take advantage, then ignoring him, walking all over him, preferring company of their own kind and rank.
Friends… He had had lots of false friends, some of whom had abused him, but for the majority of his life no best friend. First in valour and strength, in everybody's heart and affections he had been second – at best. They had taken him for granted, overlooked him. At any rate he was not their first choice, more an afterthought, if they thought of him at all.
No, they would not really miss him very much. Not even the Nine Companions. Frodo might even be glad.
The Companions … his consciousness slowly opened itself to the outer world again, and he realized that he was lying in a boat, floating down a broad river, the River Anduin, he supposed. The remains of his sword and his cloven horn were laid across his lap, his helmet was lying beside him. Under his head he could feel the soft elven-cloak given to him in Lothlorien, under his feet the weapons of his slain enemies, placed there by his friends. Placed there for his funeral.
'They must have thought me dead already. They cannot even wait till I really say goodbye.' Whether they could possibly have known better or not, for Boromir this was the final straw. He closed his eyes and departed without regrets.