The black figure dropped from the clouds towards them. Its steed stretched out cruel, curling talons. To Éowyn's horror, it seemed to be aiming straight for Faramir. Somehow, the captain managed to wheel his horse round, turning sharply. The nightmarish creature veered and soared back into the low clouds.
After that, all was chaos. Mablung was thrown from his horse, followed shortly after by Halvir. Éowyn's mount fought beneath her. She kept up a steady stream of swear-words as she struggled to maintain control. "Sodding bastard... Your sire was a sodding donkey, your dam was a mule..." Sheer bloody mindedness on her part one the day. Somehow she managed to to reach Mablung. Stooping, she grabbed his arm and hauled him up behind her. Over on the far side of the track she saw Faramir dismount, whispering all the time to his horse, then heave Halvir over its back. Halvir dangled lifelessly. Faramir swung himself back into the saddle, holding the injured ranger in place over the horse's withers.
The Nazgûl swooped for a second attack, howling their unearthly shrieks. Surely this must be the end. Éowyn felt as though she was going to be sick. Then, suddenly, she wasn't quite sure from which direction, she caught a glimpse of a blazing white light streaking towards them. The bloody horse of course skittered sideways, and it was a moment or two before Éowyn managed to get a proper look.
Across the plains from the north there swept a gleaming figure on a white horse. Éowyn's jaw dropped in amazement. The figure gleamed white, almost silver, as if glowing from within.
The lowest of the dark creatures changed course and veered towards the shining figure. Its rider reached, as if to wield some sort of weapon weapon, but the shining figure raised his staff aloft. A flash like a bolt of lightning split the air asunder, scattering the dark creatures to the four winds.
The figure galloped to them, then, with a wave of his staff signalled for them to follow. No longer gripped with fear, but now filled with a crippling tiredness, Eowyn urged her horse to follow the white rider. She sensed rather than saw Faramir by her side, but somehow took some measure of calm from his presence.
With the last reserves of their strength, the horses stumbled to the city walls and through the gate. The great gate swung shut behind them, and the guards of the city hastened to bar them securely. A group of some half dozen or so came running up to them. Faramir eased Halvir from his horse into the arms of two of them, saying to the sergeant, "Take this man to the houses of healing as fast as you can. He was crushed beneath his horse – I fear there may be bleeding inside him."
The sergeant saluted, and Halvir was placed on a plank of wood which had been pressed into service as a makeshift stretcher. While the guards attended to Halvir, Mablung slid down from behind Éowyn.
As if taking in their rescuer for the first time, Faramir turned to look at the white figure, mounted on a white stallion.
"Mithrandir," he said, in tones of wonder. "But they said you were dead..."
"Ah, now there is a tale to tell. But it must wait until you have seen your father." And with that, Mithrandir turned his horse towards the inner circles of the city, beckoning for Faramir to follow. Éowyn, watching from behind, saw that Faramir was sagging in the saddle. The last rally, fighting off his terror in the face of those winged monsters to rescue Halvir, had left him exhausted.
Éowyn too nudged her horse to follow, marvelling at the beauty of the Grey Pilgrim's horse. Truly this was a king among the Mearas, the steed of Eorl the Young reborn. How, she wondered, had the wizard come to be riding it? The last she had seen, some years back in the Riddermark, Grima had persuaded Théoden King that the Grey Pilgrim brought naught but bad news. "Lathspell," he had called him. Yet here he was riding a horse that only the king could have gifted him.
~o~O~o~
Their progress through the streets of the city had been slow. Somewhere along the way, they had acquired a most unexpected companion – yet another halfling, dressed incongruously in a child-sized version of the uniform of the guards of the White Tower. Éowyn exchanged a glance with Faramir, but it seemed that the wizard knew the halfling well. At last, they arrived at the Steward's Palace, scene of so many bitter memories for Éowyn.
She followed Faramir into the forbidding stone building, unable to stop herself remembering the last time she'd been here, when his father had as good as called her a whore. Somehow she did not think she'd be any more welcome this time. Cautiously, as they climbed the broad, sweeping staircase to the vast carved doors of the council chamber, she voiced her fears.
"I doubt he will give you any warmer welcome this time. Though I also doubt that I will get much of a welcome. Best you stand guard outside the door." Faramir led her past the great doors and down the passage way beyond towards the Steward's private chambers. The Grey Pilgrim followed them down the corridor, as did the halfling, to Éowyn's annoyance and puzzlement. But she had no time to enquire about this for Faramir and the mismatched pair of Wizard and halfling disappeared within, leaving her kicking her heels at the door.
Fragments of the conversation penetrated the door. Most of what Faramir said, presumably reports of the situation in Ithilien, was too muffled to be heard, Faramir's characteristically quiet, measured tones not carrying. But occasionally his father's voice would rise in ire, and when it did, the subject matter was almost invariably Faramir's shortcomings and the Steward's disappointment in his surviving son. "Your bearing is lowly in my presence... Yes, I wish your places had been exchanged."
At this, Éowyn gave a sharp intake of breath. Without noticing, her hand drifted to her sword hilt. How could a father be so utterly lacking in natural affection? To wish Boromir alive – she could understand this. Faramir felt the same, she herself (though she had only known him a short time) missed him acutely. But to wish his other son dead in Boromir's place! If he thought her a whore, then surely the lack of regard was mutual: she thought him a bastard. As she realised her fingers were curled round the pommel of her sword, she had a moment of black humour. The ring got it wrong. Now if it had offered me the chance to kill the bastard, rather than trying to make me believe Faramir would do it...
But her wrath was stayed by the sound of voices raised in argument. As if the people inside had been able to read her mind, Denethor and the Grey Pilgrim were now arguing about what should have been done with Isildur's bane when it lay within Faramir's reach. She shivered as she listened to Denethor's vainglorious arrogance, his assurance that he could have held it safe within Minas Tirith. Any black humour she might have managed to find a moment earlier vanished. Instead, her mind went back to the tortured night of dreams laden with temptation, to her visions of restoring the glory of the Riddermark, to the fact that even Faramir had said he had felt its evil. Béma, Denethor was a fool if he couldn't see this. From what she could hear, it sounded as though the Grey Pilgrim shared her opinion - certainly as regarded Isildur's bane, and, she suspected, also of Denethor's judgement.
Then the argument shifted. Again she heard only fragments, but it seemed that Denethor thought Faramir had not done enough to strengthen the garrison at Osgiliath – though quite what else he could have done, Éowyn could not see, since he had already sent the greater part of the Ithilien Rangers to the western bank of the crossing. She heard Denethor, almost shouting: "It is there that the first blow will fall. They will need a stout captain..."
The implication was clear – his father did not believe that Faramir could be that captain. The voices died down again, and Éowyn could not make out the individual, words. But within minutes, the door finally opened, and Faramir emerged. He paused on the threshold, turned, and bowed to his father. Then he walked away across the antechamber, looking even paler and more exhausted than he had when they finally reached the Citadel after the flight from the Nazgûl.
Éowyn stepped from where she had been waiting, in a niche beside a statue of a warrior, long dead. Faramir looked at her.
"My father bids me rest. About the one sensible thing he has said to me this whole past hour."
Éowyn looked at him, feeling almost awkward. "I suppose this time you will have to stay here..." She recalled their last stay in Minas Tirith, where they had both ended up at the town house belonging to Prince Imrahil, and Faramir had crept through the darkened house to join her in her bed.
"Yes, for my father bids us reconvene our meeting before first light tomorrow." Faramir stretched out his hands and caught hers between them. "Frankly, I don't give a damn what my father thinks right now. Stay with me..." Then he turned, still holding her hand, and set off almost at a run through the highly arched antechamber to the council room.
Éowyn soon realised the palace was vast and rambling. Faramir led her along a twisting corridor and up a winding staircase, leaving her feeling almost giddy. She wasn't sure whether this stemmed from the absurdity of the adventure, like two randy teenagers evading their parents, or whether it was some sort of belated reaction, some recoil from horror to macabre laughter from their earlier desperate flight from the Nazgûl. Either way, when Faramir finally flung open a door into a large, airy chamber, she stumbled through it, pulling him into an embrace and giggling.
Faramir put his arms round her and kissed her with a kind of gentle thoroughness, more of a promise of things to come than of immediate passion. Then he held her at arms length.
"Wait here – I will go and organise food and some hot water to wash with." He kissed her once more, this time on the brow, then strode to the door, giving her a grin before leaving.
Left alone, Éowyn began to explore the chamber. It had a high, window, three arches of stone, the central one taller and broader than the two flanking ones. The window, she discovered, looked over a courtyard garden, not unlike (and here she stifled a grin) the one at Prince Imrahil's house. To one side of the chamber was a bed – not, she thought, meant for two, but certainly not narrow, quite luxurious looking really. They would certainly both fit in it comfortably, if quite cosily. The floor had a richly woven rug in reds and browns. The room spoke of a quiet, understated luxury and wealth. Éowyn made a gentle huffing noise: somehow she always managed to forget in between visits to Minas Tirith that Faramir was anything other than a career soldier, a very gifted captain. But in fact, when she stopped to think about it, he was (for all his father did not bear the title "king") equal in rank to her cousin.
Opposite the bed was a reading desk and chair, and against the wall next to it was a tall bookcase filled with books. She stepped closer. Most of the books were in Sindarin, a language she had only a sketchy knowledge of. But she could decipher enough to tell that there was a mixture – many books on history, quite a large collection of poetry. (The notion of capturing poetry and chaining it on vellum, imprisoning it between stiff boards bound in leather, still seemed strange to Éowyn. Surely poetry was meant to be recited aloud, sung to a hall full of people, not mused upon silently in one's head in solitude?) There were other books too – on military strategy, ballistics, horsemanship (again Eowyn smiled – how could one learn horsemanship from a book?) And also books on astronomy, and herb-lore, and natural philosophy... the list of Faramir's interests seemed endless, which, now Éowyn came to think about it, she supposed wasn't exactly a big surprise. It was just striking to see it all displayed in one place.
High on one of the shelves, rolled up, was a crocheted... what, exactly? She pulled it down and it unfurled within her hands. It seemed to be a baby blanket, old and worn, some corners frayed, but worked in a complex and delicate lacework pattern, quite obviously the fruits of considerable labour and love. Why had Faramir kept it, she wondered? Gently, she laid it over the end of a day couch which sat beneath the window, and continued her investigation. Then, tucked in the corner, she came across the strangest thing of all, a wooden pole some three foot or so long, with a cloth head stuffed with fabric or kapok or similar – a head in the shape of a horse's head. She had just raised it in her hands to get a closer look when the door opened behind her.
She turned and held the curious horse-on-a-pole out. "What on earth is this?"
Faramir smiled. "It's a hobby horse – a childhood toy. From when I was about three or four, I suppose. I used to gallop round the passages on it, pretending to be a knight errant, slaying dragons."
Éowyn's brows drew together in puzzlement. "But surely at three or four you'd be riding a real pony?"
Faramir's smile turned into a ready laugh at his own expense. "And that, my love, is why your country far outstrips mine in terms of its cavalry. What other embarrassing secrets from my childhood have you discovered?" He sat down on the bed, looking at her, seemingly giving some kind of unspoken permission to carry on with her explorations.
"Well, I don't think I would call it embarrassing, for I think it probably means a great deal to you, but I wondered about this blanket." She picked the crocheted piece from the couch and held it out. Faramir's expression became wistful.
"It is the shawl my mother made for me when she was pregnant. It is one of the things I have left of her."
"How old were you when she died?"
"Only five. Old enough to remember the pain of her loss, not old enough to understand."
"My parents died when I was eight – first my father in a raid, then my mother some months later." Éowyn sat on the bed beside Faramir and put her arm round his waist, holding the shawl on her lap with her other hand. "It never leaves you, does it? The loss."
Faramir rested his head on her shoulder. "No." Then he turned to look at her, and his fingers gently touched the soft creamy folds of wool resting in her lap. "We've never talked of this..." His gaze softened. "But I can almost imagine you, sitting beside me, with a child of our own wrapped in that blanket."
For a moment, Éowyn felt seized by a kind of giddy joy, her stomach turning a curious somersault. But then just as quickly it tied itself in a knot. She could see Faramir, his eyes fixed on her face as he traced the emotions flitting across her face one after another, her confusion. He reached up a hand to trace her cheek.
"I... I... How could we bring a child into the midst of a war? If we could, I would, but..." Her voice trailed off.
"You take herbs to stop it happening, don't you?" said Faramir, gently drawing her head to rest against his chest.
"Aye... I had not realised you knew."
"Well, it would be somewhat unlikely after this amount of time for you not to have got with child without recourse to some sort of preventative method – unless of course, all my arrows are blunt."
Éowyn snorted in disbelief, and Faramir chuckled at her reaction.
There was a knock at the door.
"Come," said Faramir, and a servant entered, bearing a large steaming ewer and a bowl, which he placed on the low chest beside the bed.
"The meal will arrive soon, my lord. In about ten minutes, to give you time to wash," he said, bowing, then leaving.
"Do you want first turn with the hot water?" asked Faramir.
"Oh yes... but what shall I wear? I don't want to put these dirty clothes back on." Éowyn raised her arm and sniffed her armpit, then grimaced. Faramir got up from the bed and crossed to the clothes press beside the bookcase. He rummaged in it for a few moments, then produced a shirt and pair of breeches.
"Here – if you roll the legs up, and tie a cord round the waist, they should do."
Eowyn stripped off her dirty garments with relief and sponged herself down with the hot water. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see Faramir stretched out on the bed, watching with an admiring look. Pulling on the clothes, she turned and yanked at his ankle.
"My turn to play the voyeur – get up and have a wash."
Faramir grinned, and stood fore square, facing her. Slowly, watching her reaction, he unlaced his shirt and pulled it over his head, then slid his breeches over his slim hips, taking his small-clothes with them.
"You tease! Now you're just showing off," Éowyn snorted. But her face gave away her interest: he could see her eyes taking in every detail of his body.
"Try to tell me you're not enjoying the view," Faramir murmured, giving her a knowing, almost smug, glance.
"Your servant said they'd return with the food in ten minutes..."
"Plenty of time if we're quick."
Éowyn reached out and plucked the sponge out of the basin, then threw it at the hard planes of his belly. "I'd rather have you clean and not smelling while we eat, then we can take our time afterwards." Faramir faked a look of disappointment, but retrieved the sponge and set about scrubbing himself thoroughly. By the time the servants returned with the food, both of them were respectably dressed (or at least decently covered – Éowyn suspected that wearing a pair of her lover's old breeches and one of his shirts would not exactly be considered "respectable" in Gondor).
The food was extremely good – a pheasant pie, vegetable broth and some sort of hot rice pudding with stewed fruit. After the meal, Éowyn asked for directions to the garderobe. She returned a few minutes later to find Faramir had already stripped – clothes carelessly strewn around the room – and fallen into bed, where (to her disappointment) he lay on his belly, already fast asleep. Stifling the temptation to wake him up and remind him that she'd promised they could take their time after dinner, she too undressed and slid into the bed beside him. He didn't even twitch as she snuggled up against him.
~o~O~o~
The sky through the windows was still dark when the servant knocked at the door to rouse them. After a quick and meagre breakfast, Eowyn found herself once more pacing the flagstones outside the council chamber, hearing only odd snatches of conversation. Only one fragment really struck her, Denethor's voice demanding querulously "not if there is a captain here who still has the courage to do his lord's will."
At long last, the door swung open, and Faramir strode out, his face etched with anger. Close behind him, Mirthrandir followed, with the halfling trotting at his heels, and behind them Imrahil. Imrahil shot Éowyn a look of profound sympathy.
She found herself swept along the corridors and passage ways in Faramir's wake. Eventually, in the courtyard of the palace, Mithrandir forced Faramir to stop and face him.
"Do not throw your life away rashly or in bitterness," the wizard said. "You will be needed here."
Faramir simply shook his head. Mithrandir gave a half bow, then swept away, white robes swirling about him. The halfling followed close behind.
Faramir turned to face Éowyn. The anger faded from his face, to be replaced by a look of the most profound grief. His eyes glistened, and Éowyn could see him swallow, before he finally spoke.
"My father has ordered me to defend Osgiliath," he said.
"No!" Éowyn cried. She took his hand and clung to it. "Why? Surely it is a vain cause."
"I fear so too. I told my father that even if we held on at the price of one of our troops for every ten of theirs, still we would be overwhelmed. And with the odds as they are, the enemy can afford to throw whole regiments at us, while we can scarce afford a company." Faramir looked at her. "The only thing that reconciles me to this desperate enterprise is the hope that it may not be entirely in vain – if I can but buy us time till your compatriots come..." His voice faded.
"The beacons have been lit? The red arrow sent?" Éowyn's voice was barely a whisper. Faramir nodded. He took her hand in both of his, then rested his forehead against hers.
"And if they do... Can you lead the remainder of your troops back, do you think?"
Faramir looked at her, his gaze level. He looked as if he was fighting to remain in control. "In all honesty... I do not expect to survive to make the attempt. My father has made it clear he expects me to defend Osgiliath at all costs, even to the death," he said, quietly. "Death I do not fear, but losing you..."
Éowyn stared at him, horror struck. She found that she could not form any words at all.
"Remember that I loved you, loved you more than anything else in the whole world. And live through this, for my sake." He pressed his lips to her brow. Then, quite abruptly, he released her hands, turned and was gone.
~o~O~o~
Apologies for the long gap – I wrote a version, decided I wasn't happy with it, showed it to a friend who confirmed my opinion (and came up with a great suggestion to turn it round) and rewrote... but it's taken a bit of time.
Thanks for all the reviews. Guest – thank you for your very kind review. Yes, you are right, "stoop" wasn't a typo. If you watch a hawk or falcon hunt animals on the ground (I was watching a peregrine do precisely this a few weeks back, on the North Cornwall coast), they hover moving their wings in a kind of figure-of-eight motion while they look for prey, then when they spot something, they pull their wings in tight against their body and drop vertically – this is the stoop. I just checked on wikipedia, and the fastest speed measured for a peregrine doing this is 242mph!
As for the ring sounding very colloquial, I suppose I have in my mind that it actually does its work in a very insidious, subtle way, so that the voice starts out almost indistinguishable from one's own internal voice, and plays on insecurities and weaknesses that you might voice to yourself anyway – it then amplifies these. So it's not going to sound like some portentous "voice of doom". The thing that's so threatening is that it sounds (to start with) like you – the bits of you that you would rather you didn't have.
Finally, from what I've read, I totally agree about geldings versus stallions. In fact, the story I stole that little idea from, Thanwen's Through Shadows (which is marvellous by the way, and if you don't know it you really must go and read it) has a great scene where Elfhelm is arguing with Imrahil's wife (who is also master of the Dol Amroth stables) about this, and she makes precisely your point – that geldings, in virtue of being more predictable, actually make superior war horses. If I remember correctly, she eventually says to Elfhelm something along the lines of "My, you Rohirrim really are a testicle-happy bunch!"