Name changes again, teehee.
Melannen Muineth
Hérion Hirion
"What about Boromir?" Faramir asked slowly, not sure if he was going to like the answer.
Ayala bit her lip. She did not want to be wrong about this. She really didn't think she was, but she did not know to whom else she could turn.
Faramir mistook her hesitance and nodded almost resignedly. "You slept with him, didn't you?"
That got a reaction. "How dare you?" she asked, her voice hurt. "I love you, Faramir. I seldom spoke with the man before he…went on the Quest."
"I'm sorry," he said quietly. "I didn't mean to accuse you. Just please…tell me what it is."
Ayala stepped closer, close enough to whisper.
"Boromir's…alive."
The gritty wall met his hand as he sagged, leaning against it for support. "No. It cannot be true," he said, almost to himself. "It cannot be. I saw his body. I touched the cloven horn of Gondor!"
"Shh! Keep your voice down." Softening her tone, she continued, "I know it is difficult to believe. But you know that I would not tell you something of this magnitude unless I was almost certain it was true." Ayala touched his shoulder, meaning to steady him, and was startled to feel his muscles trembling beneath the rough ranger's garb.
"Almost certain?"
"Yes." She shifted slightly, knowing how imprudent she was going to seem. "I don't exactly know where he is."
Faramir laughed shortly, his voice lower now. "Ayala, you tell me my brother is alive, and yet you do not know where he is? Show me some proof."
"I'm not completely incompetent, Faramir. Here, look," she said, pulling a letter from her pocket.
"I can't read it, the hall is too dim."
"Get in your room, then."
Faramir moved to shut the door, a normal habit, but it was stopped by Ayala, who slowed the momentum enough to shut it noiselessly. Faramir gave her a questioning look. She was acting very
strange.
She shook her head, instead motioning for him to read the letter. "Go on."
Faramir decided it was best not to push her for an answer, instead turning his attention to the crinkled letter. His eyes scanned it carefully, but when he reached the end, he had read nothing in
the content to suggest Ayala's conclusion.
"This must be more than just a benign letter." He turned it many different ways in the light, trying to catch a reflection. He narrowed his eyes, spotting something. "There. You noticed this?"
"Yes." She looked at the nearly invisible ink with admiration. "Boromir was…is…quite an accomplished steganographer. It is a form of a distress code. The numbers 7 and 26 signify specific things. Seven was Boromir's code when he was Captain. At the time, twenty-six was the number used by soldiers to signify their, well, aliveness. It was quite simple once I made a few checks on the old codes."
"Yes," Faramir murmured as he sank to the bed, still studying it, "almost too simple. Why send this to you, a woman he barely knew, and not to his brother?"
"Think about it, Faramir. He knew that he could most likely trust me, because I am your fiancée and the ranking agent at the Bureau. Also, you know that all official mail is stamped with a seal, rather than just the usual wax, which is easily broken into and replaced. It would not be suspicious for King Imrahil, my former superior, to send me a letter, and it guaranteed its sanctity."
"So Boromir must have had access to Imrahil's things at some point," he mused. "Letters travel on predictable routes. He could have intercepted some that he knew was meant for you before the seal was put on it."
"Mm. Exactly."
Faramir exhaled, resting his head in his palm. "Then why not just come to me?" he wondered. "Why go about this furtively? The people would be overjoyed to see him again, have him back."
"I wondered the same thing, explored every possibility. In the end I came to one conclusion for his secretive behavior, the reason I have told no one but you about this and you must do likewise. He must have found out."
Faramir met her gaze, puzzled. Her voice was heavy when she spoke.
"We have a mole at the Bureau. A mole who has a reason to want him dead."
The orange peels succumbed to her scraping fingernails, falling off the fruit limply. The rhythmic motion comforted her, inducing a sort of mindless continuation. She drew in a sharp breath as the juice stung a sword cut on her hand, the peace of the moment rudely shattered.
Asli looked up at her from the pile of papers quizzically. "What, Roshni?"
She shook her head, pressing a thumb to the cut. "It's nothing. Just a little scrape."
"It is not nothing. You're not all right." Concern was evident in her clear brown eyes. "I need to get you something."
Roshni exhaled, mentally kicking herself. She should have kept silent. Asli had been working too much lately, fervently trying to find any indication of the Lieutenant. If she was being honest, she thought Asli was doing it less to be a patriot and more to block out her own grief. The last thing Roshni wanted was to give her sister-in-law any more worry.
"Don't, Asli. I think I can make it to the kitchen," she said, offering a wry smile. She heard Asli sigh.
"Very well. But I'm worried about you, you know."
You too, sister. Roshni thought. Wearily she rose, making her way through the narrow passages. She still felt claustrophobic in Henneth Annûn. It wasn't bad, really. The walkways were well lit and clean, the rooms for the most part airy. It was just that she had never been confined in all her life as much as she had been these past few days.
She paused, confused, in front of the door to her left. Sleeplessness had left her disoriented. Was this the kitchen Faramir wanted us to use? She knew he did not want her or Asli to mingle with the general populous just yet. Deciding that her wound hurt and that she really didn't care, she put her hand on the knob and turned it.
Her pupils dilated in the sudden darkness. Fumbling around, she struck the oil lamp she knew was to the right of every doorway. In the faint light, she considered her surroundings. The room was average in size and bare, unremarkable in almost every way. Her momentary disappoint was overcome when she spotted the pot of water in the corner. Anticipating the feel of lukewarm water soothing her scrape, she instead got a nasty surprise.
Roshni cringed like a child who knows they touched something they shouldn't have as the pieces of the unstable pot smashed on the floor with a sharp crack.
"Oh, curses," she muttered as she grabbed a linen cloth, bending to wipe up the water. It soaked the cloth in a matter of seconds, spreading to her fingertips. She almost welcomed the clammy sensation, alone in the room.
She had just begun to clean up the mess of the pot when, out of the corner of her eye, she saw a large, burly hand reach down to pick up a piece and hand it to her. Startled, she looked up to meet a pair of laughing eyes.
"I'm—I'm sorry, sir, I just—"
Bergil put a finger to his lips to silence her. "It's no problem. It was only clay."
She blew out a frustrated breath, hating how foolish she looked, in front of a Gondorian, no less. "Really, I feel so clumsy. I was just trying to clean and bandage this wound, and then…" she motioned to the mess.
"Let me see." When she held out her palm, he made a slight tsking noise. "We can't have that. Here, I think there's some water here to soak it in."
"Thank you," she said stiffly, letting the lukewarm water settle around her hand.
"Oh, I'm not done. I have to make a poultice for that."
Roshni watched him as he moved about in the small room. She hated being waited on, but yet she was letting him treat her wound. Perhaps it was because, despite the fact that he was a soldier and certainly knew who she was, he was surprisingly kind. He was stirring the poultice mixture with a sort of quiet intensity, as one who is familiar with a task. It calmed her.
He felt her gaze on him and looked up to meet her eyes, smiling reassuringly. Her cheeks reddened at being caught staring and she turned away. Bergil furrowed his brow. He had never seen her in Henneth Annûn before. Try as he might, he couldn't remember if Faramir had mentioned anything of new apprentices from Gondor.
"Done," he said, breaking the silence. He stood and walked to her, the bowl in hand. "Hold out your palm," he instructed. "I am going to rub some of this on it, and then I'll put a bandage on. It might hurt."
"All right." She bit her lip as the heat touched the wound. But it provided relief. Roshni sighed as the medication in the poultice began to take effect. But not just that, a voice inside her taunted. Roshni tightened her mouth, blocking those thoughts. Even a charming soldier was still a soldier. She wasn't ready to forgive just yet.
"I can't," she said with quiet vehemence.
Bergil looked up from where he was wrapping the bandage, puzzled. "What?"
"Nothing." Inwardly she kicked herself. She had to stop thinking out loud.
"All right, then," he said, putting the final touch on the bandage. She tried to pull away, but he held her hand for a moment longer, his gaze locking into hers.
"I trust you won't be breaking any more pottery?"
She laughed lightly, trying to keep the strain out of her tone. "I don't predict so."
"Then we'll keep it a secret, hmm?" He winked.
She half-smiled, not too enthusiastically. "You need to teach me how to make that poultice sometime." She had moved away, her hand on the doorknob, when she heard his voice again.
"What is your name, if I may be so bold?"
Roshni turned and paused, contemplating the question. She answered by walking through the door, leaving him in the dark as the oil wick burnt out.
Thwunk.
The target teetered slightly as a red-feathered shaft hit it squarely in the center.
Faramir laughed at Bergil's annoyed expression. "You can't beat me, even if you are practically my nephew."
Bergil raised an eyebrow. "Oh, I'm not too sure of that." Taking position in front of the shooting line, he nocked his arrow. A few seconds later, it met the target next to Faramir's arrow.
Bergil grinned as he scrunched up his face to avoid the glare of the sun. "Seems I'm better than you thought."
Faramir laughed again. "You are far too competitive, Bergil. I was merely joking." He squinted as he studied Bergil's face. "Were you on guard duty last night?"
"Yes."
"The rings under your eyes tell that quite plainly. You did not happen to meet any monsters this time, did you, Bergil?"
Bergil rolled his eyes in mock embarrassment. He would never live it down. The very first time he had been on guard duty, he had heard a scuffling around one of the corners and had shot it, thinking it was an intruder. It had turned out to be the cat, now sadly no longer with them.
"Don't worry, I think I'm past—" But he didn't finish, for at the moment Calanon joined them.
"A day at the archery range, hmm, gentlemen?"
Bergil drank from his water bottle non-committally, letting Faramir answer.
"How kind of you to join us, Calanon. We were just discussing the ups and downs of guard duty."
Calanon smirked, trying not to be overtly mocking. "Ah, I see. No doubt the difficulties of that occupation will be increasing now that the former prisoners are here. We'll have to keep the people away from them, for the most part, until they are more acclimated to their presence."
Bergil nearly choked on his water, trying not to let Faramir or Calanon see surprise in his face. Of course he was familiar with the recent events in Gondor and Haradwaith. He should have expected that they'd come here. But that woman was Haradren? Despite her desert heritage, she had been light-skinned enough that he had taken her for one of the Gondorians. Well, if she's the duumvir's daughter, she would have spent her time away from the 'daily grind,' he thought sarcastically.
Bergil could not believe his mistake.
Calanon noticed Bergil's change in visage and threw him a questioning glance, nudging Faramir. "It seems our little guard is worrying about whether he's going to shoot the ladies by accident." The two of them laughed good-naturedly.
Bergil swallowed hard, wiping the water off his sparse beard. It was difficult for him to lie. "Yes. Of course." He smiled wanly, not wanting them to suspect anything. He had been interested in her, despite her standoffish manner. Now it looked like whatever intentions he had had would never have a chance.
There was a sudden jarring knock on the door. Grumbling groggily, the man rolled over to light a lamp.
Her eyes fluttered open. "What's wrong, Zair?" she asked, her voice melodious even coated in sleep.
He put a finger to her lips. "Shh. It's nothing," he said, as he pulled a nightshirt over his frame and strode to open the door.
His glowering eyes, dark as coals, met those of a young messenger boy. "What do you want at this hour?" he asked gruffly.
"I apologize, my lord. But there's urgent news, from Near Harad." His tone was shrill.
Lord Zair snatched the paper from the boy's hand. In the swallowing blackness his fingers rolled over the seal. His heart sank.
"Go." As the boy scampered off, his feet carried him backwards to the bed. He almost dreaded what it would say. When a messenger knocks on your door in the middle of the night, it's usually not a good thing.
Luhana pushed the silk sheets over her legs and sat up beside him, brushing dark strands away from her eyes. Her thick eyelashes moved to conceal a tear as her gaze traveled along the parchment. She rested a hand on Zair's shoulder.
"What will we do?"
Zair's face, so affable before, had turned hard with resolve. In anger he balled up the message and threw it across the room.
"This is war."
Muineth dug her heels into the horse's sweaty flanks, urging her on. In three strides she felt the cool spray of water on her face. She laughed in delight as the mare splashed in up to her shoulder, snorting as the foam from her sides mixed with the cascading river.
Muineth was nearly tossed into the river herself as Rayeena spooked sharply, sending another spray into the air. She wiped the water from her eyes to see Hirion beside her on Tammen, grinning.
"I told you to put a saddle on, Hirion," she teased. "Maybe then you would have won."
"Or maybe, I let you," he shot back, still grinning.
Muineth snorted. "Oh, sure."
"Well, after all, that's the only way you can win." She sent a deluge of water his way, and he ducked, sliding off his horse. When she looked around, puzzled, he popped up on the other side of Rayeena, pushing an unprepared Muineth into the river. She met the rushing water with a startled shriek.
She came back up, gasping for breath. Her breeches and linen shirt were stuck to her now-freezing skin. "You little—" but she didn't finish, for at that moment she lunged forward and tackled him. Both horses snorted uneasily at their antics and splashed through the water, moving away.
The mutual shrieking and laughing continued for some time. At last, they emerged from the river, both still sopping wet but leading the horses behind them. Muineth shook her head, the dark chestnut curls sending water in every direction.
She plopped to the ground, pleasantly exhausted. Hirion sat down beside her, wrapping his arms around his legs. Her laughter faded into contentment as she studied him, sitting so silently. His eyes had grown unfathomable again. She twirled a strand of grass between her fingers absentmindedly, contemplating his mood. Only with horses did he come out of his shell, his shell that she could not break. She had seen it in his face when they had been splashing in the river. One moment he was exulted, carefree. The next his mask fell over him again. He was holding something back, something she had never figured out.
"That was fun," she said, breaking the silence.
"Yeah."
She rolled over at the monosyllabic answer, propping herself up on one elbow. "Hirion, we've been friends since…Ayala introduced us, when she first came to Gondor, haven't we?"
"Probably."
She touched his arm, mildly surprised to feel him shudder. "In all that time, you have never told me why you are like this."
"Like what?" he asked tonelessly.
"Like that. You're withdrawn, sullen, yet some moments I see another side of you." She drew herself up to look plaintively at him. "Who did this to you?" she whispered. "Tell me."
Hirion sighed, pushing her hand away. "It was a long time ago."
Muineth furrowed her brow, puzzled, but before he got a chance to continue, they were interrupted by the rhythmic pounding of hoof beats. Both scrambled to their feet, greeting the messenger.
"The King has ordered that you return to the Citadel immediately."
"Did he say why?" Hirion questioned. He always got right to the point.
The messenger pushed his sweaty auburn hair away from his face, looking harried. "It seems there has been unusual activity in some of our outposts. A dozen or so guards have been shot and killed."
Muineth and Hirion exchanged troubled glances. "We will return without delay," Muineth replied. The messenger nodded respectfully and spurred his horse into a gallop, on his way to alert the others. Muineth untied the horses from the tree and threw Tammen's reins to Hirion.
"What could this mean?" she asked, her expression pensive.
He shook his head, as puzzled as she. "I do not know." Both pulled their horses around and headed back to the Citadel at full speed.
And in the distance, a figure watched, cloaked in shadow.