Land of the King

Chapter 15: Sons

Gawen Gardener

'Dark wings, dark words.' Never in his life had Gawen thought those words to be more fitting then the day the raven had come bearing news of tragedy and death.

'…Goldengrove… fallen. The king… dead…. army destroyed…. survivors captured…. Arnor… overrunning the Northmarch.'

He remembered the words unwillingly, forcing him to confront the truth. His father had lost. His father was dead.

The memories came to his mind unbidden. Memories of sitting on his father's lap, reciting to him the words and sigils of the Houses of the Reach. His father would always smile proudly when he got them correct, and when he didn't he would try, ever so subtly, to help him remember. It had been his father who had put a sword in his hand, his father who had carried him up and put him on his first pony.

Garth Goldenhand, a great king beloved by all his subjects, but to Gawen, he had been his father, his hero and idol, and now he was gone. 'Taken away by the greed of Arnor,' he thought bitterly. The people of Highgarden had wailed when they had heard. 'How?' they wondered. How could it be true? How could their golden king be gone? And when the denial abated, the anger rose.

In their thousands the letters had come, letters pledging vengeance and condolences. His lords and bannermen all swore to follow him if he sought to continue the war.

The blood of the Reach was not yet spent. Yes, they had suffered a great defeat, but the sons of Garth Greenhand had fight in them still, blood still to give. Yet as much as he so desperately wished it, Gawen could not, would not ask them to shed their blood. He knew the consequences if they attempted to fight further. The Arnorians would sack Highgarden, his people would be slaughtered, and his family killed or driven into exile. And even if by some miracle they held Highgarden, the blood of thousands would be upon his hands. Blood wasted for a futile cause.

Nine years ago, his father had ridden from Highgarden. He had marched to war against Arnor the first time then, for control of the Misty Islands. Gawen had been young then, only a boy of three-and-ten to his father's three-and-thirty. His father had refused. He had told him then, 'I need you Son, to stay here and hold Highgarden for me. Can you do that?' Gawen had sworn he would. For two years he had served as the Lord of Highgarden and in the second moon of the third, his father had come back to Highgarden.

Gawen had been saddened when he saw the light in his father's eyes dimmed. Earendur Falastur had handed him a crushing defeat. But Gawen would be even more awed when he saw new life fill his father's eyes, when he saw him throw his heart into ensuring he would never lose again, preparing the Reach for war again and readying it for its next great threat.

Gawen had been there, fighting alongside his father in the Stormlands. Yet when the time came to go against Arnor for the second time, Gawen was once again left behind in Highgarden. A man grown by then and his father would not take him to war against their greatest foe. Gawen had resented his father then, or had he resented himself? Fearing that he was not as wise, as brilliant or as capable as his father had been, resenting that he could not be the son his father wanted. Yet, Gawen had done his duty nonetheless. He had stayed and held Highgarden for his father, hoping that when he returned, he would be able to confide his fears of inadequacy in his father.

It was too late already now. The Arnorian army was encamped on the other side of the Mander River. Gawen had one last chance. It would cost him his pride, his soul, and the opinion of all his bannermen, but he had one last chance to sue for peace. To ensure the Reach would live to fight again. The meeting had already been called. On the morrow he would supress his pride, supress his need to avenge his father, all for the sake of peace.


'Earendur!' Gawen shouted, throwing the wineskin hard against the wall, cracking it and spilling all the wine on the floor. The servants looking noticeably frightened, steered clear of his path as he stomped through the corridors.

The terms were humiliating! The Arnorian border was now within a day's march of Highgarden. All the Northmarch, Old Oak, Goldengrove, Coldmoat, they were all ceded to Arnor. His own mother's family, the staunch and proud House Oakheart of Old Oak no longer swore their oaths to Highgarden. And Gawen had no doubt that some way or another, the Arnorians would find some excuse to drive all the formerly Reacher lords from their lands. His lords had been enraged, calling him craven and fool but Gawen had known it had needed to be done. He hoped his former bannermen would forgive him. The Reach needed time, time to regain strength.

Earendur. Just the thought of that bastard filled him with rage. The smug look on his face when he dictated the terms had made Gawen feel like strangling him. Yet the worst had yet to come. Earendur had had the goodwill to return his father's body but the moment he had seen the body, Gawen's heart had broken again. That thing was not his father. His father was not a mangled corpse filled with arrow wounds. Gawen had chosen to remember his father the way he had been in life, and not as he had been in death.

Hearing Earendur praise his father's bravery, he had barely been able to take it. It felt so wrong, so vile to hear his father praised by the man responsible for his death. If it had not been for Earendur, for his naked ambition, his father would still be alive. Gawen had had to fight so, so hard, to keep himself from drawing his dagger and plunging it into Earendur's heart. He would have sealed his own doom, and the doom of his family, and so barely, just barely, he had been able to restrain himself.

The night after, after the peace had been made and the Arnorian army had left, they had held his father's funeral and laid his body to rest in the crypts of Highgarden in the company of their esteemed ancestors. Gawen had to watch as his sibling cried, watched as his mother broke down. Yet as much as he desperately wanted to, he could let not the tears flow. He had to be strong, for his family.

House Gardener was now the weakest it had been in centuries. Arnor may have left them alone for now, but enemies surrounded them on all ends. The Stormlanders would seek to reclaim the lands his father had taken. The Dornish would prey upon their weakness and raid to their heart's content. And without the strong commanding presence of his father, some of their more ambitious bannermen might seek to take advantage of their new liege's inexperience and seeming cowardice.

Yet he would persevere. He would make his father proud. Gawen would work hard, harder than he ever had, to be worthy of the Oakenseat, worthy to be his father's successor. And, he thought as his father's body was sealed in the crypt, he would work to Arnor's defeat.

I swear Father, I will avenge your sacrifice. I will reclaim our lost lands. Just wait Father, just wait and one day, one day I will make Arnor pay!


Cirion

The second son of Earendur Falastur was bored. The war was over, victory had been won and all that was left was to ride home in triumph. And Cirion would have the perfect opportunity to rub it in Amlaith's stuck up face that he, had been the one chose to ride by their father's side to war. The fact that Amlaith was trusted by Earendur to rule on his behalf did not occur to the young prince, so loath was he to think well of his elder brother.

The relationship between Cirion and his elder brother had always been… testy. It did not help that Amlaith was near sixty years his senior. As a child, Cirion had grown up in his seemingly perfect older brother's shadow. In everything that he had done, he had always been compared to Amlaith, and more often than not found wanting. Amlaith himself had mostly ignored him, seeing him as nothing more than his annoying little brother, preferring to spend time with his men at Fornost over his own brother. Every time they had met, Cirion would have had to listen to his arrogant 'perfect' brother lecturing him over his faults and mistakes. And so as the years went by, Cirion's resentment and dislike of Amlaith had only grown.

Cirion had been only twenty when he had heard that his mother was pregnant again. When he had heard, he had sworn to be a better brother to his new sibling than Amlaith had been to him. Cirion could not claim to be Ostoher's closest friend, but his younger brother and he had a good relationship and he had no doubt that Ostoher preferred him to Amlaith. Where Amlaith had put in the barest brotherly effort to Cirion, coming most often in the form of harsh criticisms, he could not have been even bothered to do the same for Ostoher, ignoring him even more than he had Cirion.

Amlaith had been made the Captain of Fornost by their father when he was sixty, only a year after Cirion had been born. Most of his time had thus been spent in the fortress, so much so that he was known as Amlaith of Fornost to the people. Cirion had long ago begun to resent that it was Amlaith who would inherit Arnor, when despite his seeming 'perfection' he showed little interest in ruling, preferring to gallivant away at Fornost. Cirion had grown up at his father's feet, learning how to lead, learning how to rule. It was Cirion who sat on the Council of the Sceptre at the place often held by the King's Heir, not Amlaith.

Sometimes in the back of his mind, Cirion secretly, treasonously, wished that he was the heir. What had Amlaith ever done to deserve the Sceptre? Cirion had worked hard to prove his worth, and he had served at his father's side for years. Why did Amlaith get to be king? Yet he had always supressed these thoughts. It was not his place to desire the throne. All younger sons of kings were expected to follow the example of Prince Amroth, second son of Tarcil, who had, despite his estrangement from his brother, served him loyally and had been rewarded well. Somehow though, Cirion doubted he would ever be able to reconcile with Amlaith the way Tarondor and Amroth had famously reconciled. The two brothers had repaired their relationship which had been strained after their mother's death. Cirion wasn't even sure if one could call what he had with Amlaith a relationship of any kind.

Yet, he thought as he turned to look at his father, High King Earendur riding beside him, for his father's sake he would try. Cirion knew his father, like any other father, would be much aggrieved to know his sons would squabble after he died.

"Something on your mind Cirion? You have been staring into space for some time now," his father asked.

"Well…" Cirion thought, trying to think of something to say. He could not very well tell his father what he had been really thinking now could he?

"I was wondering why you agreed to make peace with the Reach. We defeated their army. It would have been easy for us to take Highgarden and the rest of the Reach," Cirion asked. It was actually a question that he had been wanting to ask for some time now.

His father stared at the lands around them, taking in the beauty of Ithilien, before answering.

"Easy? Yes, as you say, it would have been easy, to conquer that is, but actually holding the Reach would be a different matter altogether. You know your history son. Tell me, how did Tarondor Hirgaer conquer the Iron Islands?"

Cirion thought for a while. "He destroyed their navy and then overwhelmed them with military force."

"That's right. However, when it comes to conquest, overwhelming force is not the only thing you need. When a man bends the knee to you, you must give him your hand and pull him back on his feet, lest no man would ever want to bend the knee to you. Tarondor conquered the Islands with force, but they hated him so much that they rebelled no less than ten times. Each rebellion was bloody and costly for Arnor to suppress, but it was possible because the Islands were so small compared to Arnor. However, the Reach is a kingdom larger than even Arnor so…"

"If we had conquered the Reach, we would have had to spend years suppressing rebellions. I see now. You never intended for the peace to be long-lasting. You wanted to consolidate our gains before we moved on to the next conquest."

Earendur laughed, "Now you see it. Yes, we could have conquered the whole Reach but we would have had to spend the next few decades suppressing any rebellions that arose. Remember my son, that it was not until my own father's rule that the Iron Islands fully integrated into the realm. It is better for Arnor if we conquered slowly, province by province, assimilating each region before we moved on to the next. Do not forget that as Dúnedain, we have longer lives than lesser men. We have the time to wait and calculate our next move. Unlike any other people, time is our ally, not our foe. Let this be a lesson to you, son. One should not conquer, unless they know how to rule and use what they have conquered. Otherwise, they dishonour the sacrifice of their soldiers."

"And why then did you not demand for Gawen to return to the Storm King the lands the Goldenhand seized? They were our allies after all."

"I was tempted to actually, but I think If I demanded any more, the boy king would have drawn his sword on us, truce regardless."

Cirion grimaced at the memory of King Gawen. The Gardener king had obviously been in grief during their negotiations and seething at Arnor's demands right after they had killed his father. He felt a bit guilty as well, as the one who lead the charge that had ended up killing Garth Goldenhand. Cirion knew that if anyone killed his own father, he would hunt them down mercilessly so he could very well understand what the King of the Reach was no doubt feeling.

Not seeing Cirion's expression, Earendur continued, "The Stormlands were only an ally of convenience as well. 'The enemy of my enemy is my friend' after all. We had a mutual enemy and, so we allied together against that enemy. However, I am not stupid. No doubt, Gawen would seek to avenge his father and that would lead our two kingdoms into war again, perhaps before we are ready. The Stormlands will fight with the Reach to reclaim their lost territory, and Gawen will have no choice but to defend his father's gains to appease his bannermen, who are no doubt angry with him for yielding so much territory to us. It's good for us as the Reach will be very distracted for the foreseeable future, and every moment they spend fighting the Stormlands is a moment they spend not preparing for war against us again"

"Cirion?" his father asked, finally noticing him staring.

"Nothing, you just reminded me how amazing you truly are Father."


The army was greeted with cheers upon its triumphant return to Annúminas. Cirion had ridden alongside his father into the Sunset City, the Jewel of the West. The crowds had waved and cheered for them. 'Long Live King Earendur!' and 'Long Live Prince Cirion' they chanted. Flowers lined the paths to Amon Erain and an honour guard escorted them all the way to the citadel.

Their journey was slowed by the ever-growing crowd following them and cheering, but Cirion did not mind. He enjoyed the adulation of the people, well aware that atop Amon Erain, his insufferable brother awaited.

Hours later when they finally reached the citadel, having ridden up through the fortress, they were greeted by all its inhabitants. His mother, Idril, was there, as were both his brothers and a whole host of lords, courtiers, and servants. All assembled, save for the Fountain Guard guarding the White Tree, knelt when his father dismounted.

"Hail Your Majesty, Annúminas is yours." Amlaith greeted, still kneeling.

Cirion followed his father forward. He was far more pleased than he should be in seeing Amlaith kneeling in front of him. Some childish, delusional part of him would no doubt like to pretend that Amlaith was kneeling to him, not their father. It would never happen in reality but he had to take what small satisfaction he could.

"Rise Prince Amlaith. You have done well in your service. And the rest of you rise as well, return to your duties," The King commanded.

After that, Cirion's younger, and in his opinion, much more likable brother came straight to him, walking alongside him as they entered the Tower Hall together.

"Welcome back brother. How was the war?" Ostoher questioned.

"It went extraordinarily well dear Ostoher, let me tell you…," Cirion replied, and soon they were back to their old dynamic. They may not have been the closest of brothers, but Cirion knew that Ostoher was his brother in all the ways Amlaith was not. He could always count on Ostoher to have his back when needed, to hear his side of the story and to support him. That relationship had been so strong that Ostoher was the only person he had ever told about his secret wish to be king.

For his part, Ostoher had long looked up to Cirion and, as a child, he had toddled after him everywhere. Unlike Amlaith, who on the rare times he was in Annúminas, saw it as a nuisance, Cirion had welcomed it because it meant that at least one brother wanted to spend time with him.

Court was now in session, Cirion and Ostoher were forced to halt their conversation to listen. Their father, the King recounted to the court the events of the war, events they had no doubt heard already, but it was expected of them to listen nonetheless, and began singling out individuals for praise and rewards.

Cirion himself was honoured with a grant of land, a small fief in the newly conquered regions. Yet as he knelt to accept his reward and go through the usual formalities one did when honoured by the King, a treacherous thought filled his mind.

Are you truly satisfied with this measly grant? You fought a war with your father and he honours you so little?

Even on the outside as he accepted his fief with the usual 'To serve is its own reward', Cirion had to suppress the treasonous thoughts in his mind. Yes! Yes, he wanted to be king! But It could never be. That he as a second son was being honoured so was already proof of his father's generosity. He should be grateful for what he was given, for unlike Ostoher he actually now had land, instead of hungering for a throne that was not his.

Forcing his treasonous thoughts down, Cirion thanked the king, "Thank you, for this great honour…Father."

The court murmured. Cirion had broken protocol by addressing the king as his father instead of 'sire' or 'Your Majesty' during court. Yet his father did not mind.

"You are very welcome, my son," he said, smiling.


"Father, I was wondering if I could have your leave to return to Fornost," Amlaith asked. The royal family was having a private dinner and he had clearly thought it a good time to ask.

Cirion looked at him unimpressed. It had been only a few months since they had returned to Annúminas and Amlaith was already asking to return to Fornost? During those few months, Amlaith had sat at his rightful place in the Council of the Sceptre. By tradition, the Steward of Arnor, the king's appointment for his right-hand man sat on well the right of the king. As the King's Heir, Amlaith sat at their father's left, a position Cirion himself had sat in for many years whenever Amlaith was absent, which was quite often due to his position at Fornost. Cirion's position there had raised some eyebrows at the beginning of course but none dared question the king.

Cirion had been less jealous than he had thought at seeing Amlaith sitting in the seat he had long sat in. Rather he had felt a strange mix of disappointment and pride? And he had felt quite impressed that Amlaith was finally stepping up to his duties as heir. Of course he could do it. Amlaith had proven to be an exceptional Captain of Fornost, the men adored him and the fortress had never been more well-run or governed.

Loath as he was to say anything good about Amlaith, Cirion had to admit that he had done a very good job in ruling Fornost, but the problem had been that he had only cared about Fornost, when the king's responsibility was to care about the realm as a whole. Still, willing to give him the benefit of the doubt, Cirion had thought that Amlaith was finally applying what he had learned at Fornost to the Council, and was taking a more active role in the realm's governance. Unfortunately, his recently increased opinion of Amlaith had gone straight back down when he heard his brother asking to go back to Fornost. It seemed that his father had similar thoughts.

"Amlaith, son, why do you wish to go back to Fornost? You are the King's Heir. The Captainship of Fornost was to help you learn and train for that role. Your place is by my side."

"With all due respect Father, my place is beside the men that I have trained and commanded for over a century now. Eru willing, you shall have many years more Father. Until the time is needed for me to succeed you, I wish to resume my responsibilities in Fornost."

The king sighed, "Amlaith, you cannot learn how to be king if you spend all your time in Fornost. I need you here. And your responsibility is no longer to Fornost but to Arnor as a whole. A new Captain of Fornost was appointed, your former second-in-command I believe. I'm sure he has more than enough experience to handle Fornost from now on."

Amlaith's tone became dangerously low, "When was this decided?"

Cirion feeling the need to interject, answered, "In yesterday's Council meeting. You would know about it if you had actually attended instead of running around preparing for your now cancelled trip."

Amlaith ignored him and continued, "Why was I not informed?"

His tone remaining ever so low. Almost a whisper, but all in the room could hear him.

"You just were. Mind your tongue Amlaith. You are the heir, but I am still your King," their father rebuked, his tone matching Amlaith's own.

The silence in the room was so thick, it was almost suffocating. One could hear a pin drop. A loud clanging noise suddenly distracted Cirion from his brother and father's confrontation.

"Sorry, I dropped the knife." Ostoher announced, clearly uncomfortable at having broken the tense silence.

Amlaith set down his own knife and utensils and said, "Forgive me. I appear to have lost my appetite," before he got up from his chair and made to leave the room.

Their father got up as well, shouting after him, "Amlaith! Amlaith I did not give you leave! This conversation is not done Amlaith, take another step and you forfeit your right to the throne!"

But Amlaith either did not hear their father, or did not care, for he made no effort to return. Their father slumped back down into his seat, a troubled expression on his face.

"What am I going to do about that stubborn boy?" his father asked out loud, his voice concerned and mournful.

"You should not have told him like that. I told you. You should have informed him yesterday itself," his mother said.

His father replied, "I knew he would react like this! No matter when he was informed!"

Sighing, he continued, "If I had known it would cause this kind of problem, I would never have made him Captain."

Yet as his mother and father began arguing over how to handle their errant son, Cirion could only stare at the corridor his brother had left through. Deep in thought.

That night, Cirion's treasonous thoughts returned with a vengeance. He couldn't sleep. Cirion was well aware that he was likely overthinking it. After all, there was no way his father's threat to Amlaith had been true. Father would never disinherit Amlaith, yet some dark, selfish part of Cirion wished he would. He was ready, he was willing. Where Amlaith had procrastinated, Cirion had long been eager to learn how to rule and lead. Maybe his father would finally see that and name him heir? Ah, what was he thinking. It would never happen.

Somehow Cirion was able to finally get some sleep that night, but in the early hours of the morning, the sun having barely risen, he was shaken from his slumber by a maid. Understandably he was quite angry.

"What do you think you are doing? Who gave you permission to be in here?" He had demanded of the maid harshly, still grumpy from being woken up.

The maid looked troubled and scared. She looked at the floor nervously as she answered.

"For-forgive me Your Highness! I was sent by your mother. Ther-there's no easy way to say this but your father, he-he's dead!"

The maid had barely finished when Cirion had rushed out of the room, as quickly as he could.