A captain suffers to be used; the end game turns
Najir slept that night a little fitfully and rose before the sun. It was dark and cool within the room; the fire had burned low. Hurriedly, he pulled his dress robes from within his pack and wrapped them tightly round. Red tunic and soft pants first, then the heavier blue silk of the outer robe. He wound the length of darkest blue silk precisely the prescribed three turns around. Once for the Hunter and once each for his blessed prophets. The weight of the sash about his waist was comforting. It steadied him; his fingers by feel alone knew the the ritual, even as the prayer played across his lips. Araw, I am your faithful servant. I bow my head; my soul I kneel before you.
With relief he slipped chilled toes into the finely embroidered slippers and padded softly across the floor. Pleased to find the silk warmed quickly to his body, he bent to the fire and placed on another log, eying thoughtfully for a moment the sparks that jumped and flared. He was unwilling yet to venture out and navigate the many winding, unfamiliar halls and so he stayed in place; sat lightly on the great carved chair before the fire. The room was sumptuous and well appointed, but felt to him stern and far too cold. How did these men sleep throughout the winter within stone walls that did not heat, where the light of the sun could not penetrate? He pulled the chair a little closer to the fire's flickering glow.
Though he knew he lied Najir told himself it was the unsettledness of sleep upon a mountain that made his muscles tingle nervously, not the import of the day. He took up his beads and began to braid them through his unbound hair. The words of prayer and the gentle motion of his fingers helped to sooth his jangled nerves. With surprise he realized the dawn had come, when with the flash of sun upon a bead, he heard bird song return to greet the day.
After they hurriedly broke their fast with their hosts, the Haradrim retreated to their rooms to finish their preperations. Goran retraced the henna upon his uncle's cheeks and hands. As he did, he grumbled, face set and thunder in his eyes; the memory of their meeting with the Steward rankled still.
"Their sheikh, I do not trust him." he said, as nimble fingers traced a careful curve.
Najir kept carefully still, let his sigh escape through the pleading motion of his hands. "You must keep your temper this day, young one. If you cannot, it is better to remain silent."
"Silent!" Goran stepped back, expression incredulous. The cone of coloured paste now shook within his hands. "When that one speaks with little reverence for our people? Did not bow respectfully before you?"
"I suspect that there is no one that he bows before, Goran. No slight was meant specifically to us. He is their Sheikh of Sheikhs. He is proud and sees no one as worthy of his equal."
At the sudden derisive snort Najir worriedly placed a hand upon his nephew's arm. "It is better to be silent and thought a fool than to open your mouth and remove all doubt. He is not one to be swayed by the fire of our words. Only the careful craft of our argument. The prophet says 'Raise your words, not your voice. It is rain that grows flowers, not thunder.'"
A dark brow quirked higher and dark eyes held the young man fast.
Goran flushed and nodded. "I will try, my sheikh."
As the young man again turned his attention to a soaring bird upon his uncle's fist, Najir thought upon their meeting in the citadel. The older brother had been different from the lieutenant that they knew but had made them very welcome. A large and laughing man, a great warrior by all accounts, honourable and warm. It was as clear that he valued his brother's judgement as it was that their father did not. Najir had been quite shocked. This Steward was a noble man and learned like his younger son in lore and language but the Haradrim would never have guessed the cold and haughty lord to be his sire. Hard he seemed, fair perhaps, but not generous. Neither pretty words, nor music, nor often beauty would move him.
The last touches to the finer details were just finished when a knock sounded at their door. Faramir, dressed in the black and sable, dress uniform, waited patiently in the hall. Drab as the birds that hopped to keep warm upon the stone windowsill, thought the Haradrim with a smile. Men and birds should have brighter plumage.
"Are you ready my Lord?" Faramir's question, spoken in their fair language, was the soul of earnest consideration, as different from his father's earlier indifference as it was possible to be.
Najir smiled and nodded, more than a little relieved to find the young man bore him no great ill for the surprise he had received the day before. The knowledge the Haradrim had gained, he hoped, had made the little obsfucation very worth it.
They walked without further word for many minutes, traversing the distance from the the Citadel to the Great Hall of Merethrond. At the great carved doors a pair of guards stood sharply to attention.
Faramir was about to ask to be announced, when Najir spoke one single word. "Hold."
The lieutenant turned quickly back.
The dark man's lips moved silently as he settled his elaborate robes one last time; gold beads gleamed like a hundred tiny suns in a sudden shaft of morning light. Behind him Goran looked pale and worried.
The Shiekh clenched a fist and took a breath. It was an illusion, but a pleasing one, that made the hawk's wings appear to fold. He was startled then, but should not have been, to hear the young lieutenant use a saying born of wide sky and wider, shifting sand.
"I have your weather, Najir." Faramir spoke quietly and bowed his head, left hand clasped upon his forearm.
I have your weather. 'I have your back.' it meant and was only used between two who were honoured friends. He heard the offering unspoken in the air; let it wash into his heart and made one back.
"A new friend is an oasis unexpected." Grey eyes and black held each other for another moment. Water was life. To find a friend is to open a page for life.
"Let us go…."
.
~~~000~~~
.
The fourth bell of morning rang out across a city bathed in sun but kissed by the first strong chill of approaching winter. Her marble colonnades and walls shone brightly, white as the coming snow but did not hold the heat. In his study the Steward stood before a fire and tried to warm hands and face chilled from the morning's audience. The frigid air, as always, had sunk through the vaults of Merethrond.
He was, he found, so very cold and tired. For a moment Denethor contemplated sending Cahil for a warmer robe. The thought of sitting wrapped and at ease before the fire was suddenly quite enticing. But with dismay he wondered if he had not the fortitude for the weather now, what then would he do when winter's true biting cold arrived?
The Lord of Gondor knew all too well it was not age or malady that sapped him but an ever pressing need whose demand would only surely grow. What had been taxing before was now a very battle. The stone had become more wayward. He had reached out east and with it encountered something new. A presence, a brooding adumbration that sat and waited, content to let him come. He knew its game but his will was strong; there was strength of old within his blood and his need to know was great. Yet the other's focus, its pressure, its dark and brooding haze crept ever down. Each day it took more will and energy to hold the stone, to see what he wished to see: Gondor, his lands, the gathering strength of the Enemy beyond the shadowed palisade of Ephel Duath.
The witless, slavering Orcs he saw were many. The Abhorred One gathered more to him and their numbers multiplied like maggots feasting upon foul carrion. Still Denethor did not quail; they were not men, their will was weak and without their captain he judged they would be easily assailed. He tempered what pity and fear darkened his secret heart with numbers. In time his thirst for numbers, for knowledge, had became as sharp as another's need for drink or dice. And just as irresistible.
The closer to Mettare that they came the hours he could search decreased: the stone needed light to see, however faint. Beyond the Mountains of Shadow there was little such, the denizens of Mordor were used to a deeper, redder glow and Ithil penetrated very little. His knowledge had become more dearly bought, wrested with greater cost from the waning light of day.
Unconsciously Denethor shivered; a chill coursed through him. Whether weariness or season he could not tell. Pacing in agitation before the hearth, he wrapped thin, spare arms about his body, the new laid fire was not enough. Surely the greater weariness would fade as his mastery of the stone's now sharper will improved? Perhaps he should not search night after night; should pace out his visits, give his body more time to recover in between? It was better, he felt, to accept and adjust with time than to coddle, or so he had been taught. Belatedly, he made a mental note to order fires to be lit the day long now that season had truly turned.
Some time for quiet contemplation now was no more than his due. The council had been more than usually tedius that morn. With great effort he had kept his countenance thoughtful and composed, listened to each and every lord and councilor. All had felt the need to recount his fief's experience on the Crossings, their current encroaching threats and their views upon the plea before them.
It had been so very, very predictable.
While his stratagem of disregarding, but listening to, each and every councilor in turn had served him well, he found it more trying to orchestrate of late. Sadly, it was all too necessary: propriety must be satisfied; appropriate airing of the options done and seen to have been done. The latter was always the most important.
Nothing that the Sheikh of the Qahtani or the sententious, long-winded councilors had said had moved his mind one whit. His own decision on the matter had been reached long before the Haradrim spoke so eloquently before the hall. He had, Denethor allowed, been a most persuasive, impressive sight; the flowery words and ringing tones had painted a vivid picture of need and threat. The Steward had almost been persuaded of his good intentions. Almost.
The idea of an alliance was out of the question. It was far too risky. Suspicion, the old battles and old fears, should not be set aside too lightly. Nor dismissed for the prettiness of one man's words. The Haradrim, time and again, had broken truce with their indulgent neighbour, behaved as wayward children, never held to one design or purpose for very long. One trusted repeated oathbreakers at their peril.
And what in the end, more to the point, would be the benefit of giving aid? To lose men they could ill afford for the gain of a few hundred horse? Better to hold what they had, strengthen their will and sharpen their steel, than to overreach.
None of it truly mattered. The time of testing would come all too soon.
The morning's pressing issue settled to his satisfaction, the Steward gave no further thought to another delegation, and so the guard's voice startled him. He was surprised and no little annoyed, when the call and knock upon his door. A tired grimace flared briefly on the high, proud face. Reluctantly, he acquiesced.
"Come." The sterness and impatience in that single word would have made many think twice about the advisedness of interrupting the Steward at that point. But not his eldest, who led from the front per usual; nor his youngest for whom the tone was quite routine; nor his chief councillor, who felt quite naturally inclined to disregard his many moods.
Denethor took a deep and steadying breath, choose to sit upon the chair beside the fire. It was not a throne, this was not the hall, but he knew that they were supplicants and it suited him to have them stand before him.
His sons, courtesy drummed into them from an early age, waited patiently for the Duchess of Lossarnach to precede them into the room. She glided quietly forward and stood upon his left. He sensed only firm resolve but knew she held her inner thoughts in careful check. That Amerith might choose to weigh in again did not bother him overmuch, nor did the news that she had been in contact with the Haradrim. Such was the price of keeping her support. It was usefull: it kept her busy and out of his more urgent and burdensome designs.
Faramir came next and walked with ill concealed annoyance, eyes dark with anger. He had recived his lord's decision with the shock that came only when one is blinded by emotion. Unable to accept he might be wrong, learned but not with a needed shrewdness, Denethor worried he was soft and easily swayed. Amerith had not done him a service working on his gift. The boy had too much empathy; was moved to weakness by what he saw in men.
Boromir strode last through the room to stand close beside the hearth. His hair had grown longer in the weeks he had been abroad to the kingdom's north. Straighter than his brother's, its longer length made his face seem narrower, and with it more like to Faramir.
Their father wondered for a moment whose idea it had been to argue more, the Captain or his youngest? Surely it was Faramir. But then looking upon the storm in Boromir's grey Hurin eyes, the greater resemblance between the now grown men, he thought for once he had been wrong. Perhaps they are more alike in heart sometimes than I give them credit for.
He gazed upon the three arrayed before him with weary indignation. Each had counselled for alliance, had said their piece, had heard him give his final decision on the matter. It mattered little that they did not like his decision. He expected to be obeyed.
Boromir spoke first. He stood straight and proud as ever, but the hand upon the mantelpiece drummed impatiently upon the carven wood, belying his greater agitation.
"Father, I believe this petition needs far more serious consideration than it has received this day."
"Oh do you?" Denethor, with difficulty, kept the taint of acid from his tone. "And what, in your opnion have I failed to understand about this rather chancy enterprise?"
A wiser man would have recognized the thinness of the ice on which he walked, but not the Captain, who in that moment believed implicitly in his father's fair regard. "The risk to our future security should all the tribes unite and follow this new Sheikh. So many mounted warriors, united, trained well and better organized would be difficult for us to face."
A mocking eyebrow wended its way higher. Oh my stolid son, you really have no idea. "And truly you think that expending our forces to help this single tribe would be enough to hold them off?" Contempt glittered in the Steward's gaze, dripped thickly from each word.
Boromir shifted a little uncomfortably, looked down and for no reason that he knew took off his Captain's ring. He was not used to this more personal interrogation, the mocking tone Denethor now used with him. How does Fara put up with this? A flush of unaccustomed anger crept up his throat. He was their father, for Valar's sake. They were not children; neither of them should be spoken to this way.
"Yes, yes I do. And believe that we can gain greater benefit thereby."
"And what, my son, is to guarantee that once saved they do not turn against us? Qahtan fought with the tribes at Poros, or have you forgotten that? I wager Theoden-King has not. Thanks to the Haradrim Rohan lost two heirs, both of his grand-uncles gave their lives upon the Crossings. The river ran red with the blood of Gondor and Rohan both. You would trust them?" Denethor's voice held a dangerous note and he turned hard eyes upon both his sons.
Faramir steadied his gaze, put all his certainty into a carefully measured tone. "I trust Najir." Surely Father can see this in him as well as I? He found he did not have it in him to ask directly, to remind his father of one of his less martial skills.
The answer came with immediate disdain. "Then you are more of a fool than I had thought." Denethor spat out. "They have betrayed us many times. One man is not an entire people."
Nor is he always just a grain of sand within the desert. Faramir did not say it aloud. He was well versed in retreating before his father's sudden onslaughts.
Boromir, impetuous as always, was not so willing back down, incensed as he was by this latest needless swipe and his father's tone. "Father we have little cavalry save Uncle's and Rohan may be beset by troubles of her own. Surely we must support them. There could be much to gain."
"Enough." Silence fell into the room, oppressive and unyielding. Denethor let it stretch to make his point. As the Lord and Steward, it was not their place to question him.
Furious at the challenge, he choose to let his elder son feel the force of his greater ire.
"I am not surprised to hear you council for battle Boromir. Ever your wish is to be valiant, to do great deeds. I could almost think you as vainglorious as Earnur was of old. That did him little good, does us little good now. Only knowledge and vigilance can keep our people safe as the Enemy gathers beyond our gate."
"And if the Eldar came in need, would it be your counsel to turn them away as well?" Boromir exclaimed.
With shock his little brother recognized a face from upon the battlefield: nostrils flared in fury, the handsome brows stretched together in concentration. "All those bloody battles Ivanduil had me memorize, time and again in every great and glorious victory we had allies! The Rohirrim, the Eldar, the Five armies."
Denethor cut him off with an impatient hand. "Your example is a poorly chosen one my son. It is the Eldar who have turned away from us. They look only west and wait patiently for the day they can leave this morass behind and find the solace only they are promised."
Amerith, silent until now, watched uneasily as the tension began to mount. The debate seemed almost to Denethor to be a challenge, his sons the young pups facing an older cur who snapped and snarled, impatient of the testing. Was everything to him now framed in conflict? It was all too unsettling a thought.
With little hope, she tried a different tack: used his title as a lesson and a goad, reminding him of the smallness that the kingdom had now become. "My Lord Steward of Gondor, if we deny them aid a great many people will come to harm."
"Amerith you know as well as I we cannot right all the evils in the world nor take in every supplicant. It is not our concern. Gondor must hold against the Enemy. We need all our strength for that."
The duchess looked upon her ally. Where was the just and thoughtful man she had come to know? Denethor of old had been able to see beyond the borders he guarded with such care. "Yet surely women and children could be sent here to safety? We cannot just abandon them to the slaughter."
"We cannot find shelter and sustenance for the hundreds or thousands who would be displaced. Without our language how would they fare? With no menfolk to provide how would they live? Will Lossarnach and Lebinin feed them all? They are not Edain. They not our people." Denethor rose abruptly and strode toward his desk. Clearly, for him the audience was finished.
Faramir, appalled by the justification and sick at the thought of what would come, incautiously grabbed his father's arm as he passed by. Somehow he had to make his father see.
"Najir's people workship Araw Father, Orome, the Valar. Their prayers are but little different than our own. They are our people. Did Earnur turn away when Gilgalad needed aid at Fornost? When the Faithful landed did the Noldor and Sindar turn them from these shores? They were refugees too. "
Denethor roughly threw off the grasp and turned toward his son. He was tired of this. How dare they question anything he said? The words came out in mocking snarl. "Well done, Faramir. And I doubt not you can give me also the dates of their landing and the names of their generals. But still it does us no more good than your fool brother's wish for glory!"
There was a swift intake of breath. Faramir drew back, wariness and shock in the set of every sinew. Never had Denethor spoken of his eldest that way.
Amerith found that she was trembling, uncertain of where the end game lay. Was there nothing solid in this time, if even bedrock, the certainty of a father's fair regard, could shift under the force of opposition?
Denethor avoided the look of surprise and fury upon his eldest's face and continued to berate his younger son. "That was a time of peace! Utterly different. Have you not noticed we are soon to be at war? It may not be declared as such but it is coming. Why else do you believe I toil all the hours of the day!"
A cold white anger boiled up inside. Fools. He was surrounded by sentimental fools who had no real comprehension of their foe. "Our concern is Gondor. We cannot do more."
The Steward looked up and caught his Captain's thunderous gaze. Defiance was written in the hard set of Boromir's furrowed brow, the steady clenching and unclenching of a fist about a ring.
Well then. If his son did not understand, it was long past time for his heir to learn a crucial lesson.
Denethor turned, and gestured toward the door. "Come my son. It is clear that you need to understand a little better your inheritance." His voice was iron, his expression expectant and implacable. He did not imagine he would be disobeyed.
Not one of them in the room misunderstood which son he meant.
Faramir, lines of unhappiness deeply etched upon his brow, held his breath. For once he could not predict what his beloved brother would choose to do.
Boromir squared his shoulders but did not take a step. Slowly, even a little insolently, he slid his ring of office back on his hand, looked around and nodded to them both. Without a word he followed his father through the door.
Amerith was never quite sure what had flashed for the briefest moment behind the steel grey eyes of Gondor's youngest Captain. She hoped it was a trick of the fading firelight, but always feared it had truly been a momentary hatred.
Oh please, have care.
She sent out the silent plea but knew not who it was for: the father or the son.
~~~000~~~
.
Boromir followed his father up the endless winding steps, torchlight flickering upon the walls and shadowing a countenance that brimmed with anger and frustration. Neither man spoke as they turned and turned and turned again, climbing the tower of their forefather to its highest point.
Nearly at the topmost stair, the Steward's elegant sable robes caught for a moment upon an iron bracket. As Denethor lifted the hem to free the heavy fabric, his son caught a glint of silver underneath.
Armour? Boromir was startled by the sight. What does Father need armour for?
Another bitter thought followed quickly on the first.
He has no need for such. His body and his heart are become harder each passing day.
~~~000~~~
.
The door to Boromir's room was not yet locked when Faramir sought out his elder brother many hours later. The evening bell had come and gone and all through the fading light of afternoon he had felt a feeling of disquiet settle in his chest. It had swelled and knotted up his stomach, pounded dully behind his eyes.
Najir and Goran had been sent with Mablung and the Rangers to find a meal and see something of the middle circles. At first he had tried to join them, to converse and act as a good host should, but restless with the gnawing uneasiness he found could not eat, every bite made his stomach clench in sour indignation. Finally, he had excused himself and sought respite in their study and the distraction of a book. Though he had tried to read, his mind and heart pulled elsewhere. After every second sentence he had looked up, hoping to hear his brother's heavy footfall.
At last, after hours more of anxious waiting, a guardsman came to say that the Captain had descended the tower steps. Throwing down the forgotten book, Faramir passed through the hall almost a run, not stopping for his usual friendly word to the guardsman that he knew.
A sense of urgency had compelled him to reach his brother's door, yet quixotically once there, he hesitated to turn the familiar latch. The sick feeling in his stomach had not abated, in fact it had a intensified. He took a deep and steadying breath, gripped the handle, and peered into the room.
The golden glow of a brightly burning fire warmed the tidy space. As usual swords and armour were laid carefully against the wall, the bed made without a wrinkle and a stack of reporting scrolls were piled neatly on the desk. Unlike his own messy abandon there were few books and no mementoes of any kind. Boromir liked an uncluttered space. His two favourite things were the sole exception: a large painting above the bed and an intricately stitched coverlet. Both in blues and greens, both had been made by Finduilas long ago.
His brother sat in an armchair by the fire, still dressed in his dress uniform, boots and belt flung carelessly across the carpet. Slumped forward, elbows upon his knees, Boromir sat, tankard in hand, staring with unseeing eyes into the blaze. The straight raven hair fell lankly; it hid a little the firelight that played across the angled planes of his handsome face. It did not hide the dark smudges below the haunted eyes, nor the lines of fatigue set about the nose and mouth.
Faramir padded softly forward. The tankard was full and from the heady fumes it was full of brandy. He found himself grateful that his brother did not have far to go to make it to his bed. From the look of him, even that might yet be too great a task.
Long minutes passed before Boromir made to move or even seemed to notice Faramir standing there, waiting patiently for the weary man to speak. When at last he did, the Captain's voice was hoarse, pitched barely above a whisper.
"I wish that the taste could scrub the memory from my mind. Medicinal is it not? Kills infection and other types of rot."
The anguished eyes had still not left the hidden vision that danced within the flames. Suddenly he shook his head and reached wearily for the flask, slopped another measure in and gestured for his little brother to help himself.
Faramir shook his head. He still felt ill. More to the point it would not work and it might be hours yet before he could seek his bed.
He did not like his brother's stillness.
The Boromir he knew would be throwing something, swearing, raging on about their father's stubbornness and lack of accommodation. Not sitting brooding; still and white as if carved from Mindolluin's bones. The room was so eerily hushed and quiet, and his brother with it, Faramir fancied for a moment he could hear the wax drip from the candles set on the low table beside the hearth.
The older man scrubbed his hand tiredly across his face and took another swig. Red rimmed and bloodshot eyes at last looked up. For a long moment Faramir thought he wouldn't speak of it, but then, with a sigh, he did.
"It is exhuasting holding the images still. I am surprised how very much they tug and turn, try to twist away from your grasp. I don't know how he does it little brother, up there, night after night. Surely the fatigue alone would cripple a lesser man."
The great head wearily dropped again, red eyes fixed once again on redder flames. A great shudder shook his frame.
The fire crackled and spat out a spark. Faramir walked over and carefully ground it out below his heel. He rested one arm upon the mantle and watched his brother's reflection flicker, small and fragile, in the amber glass of the brandy flask.
For Father this has never been about just us, our lives, and our own family. It has always been Gondor. Headache pounding now at a screaming pitch, Faramir asked the question in his heart.
"What did you see?"
Boromir shuddered, raised the tankard and swallowed; gulped unseeing like a drowning man. An arm shot out and fumbled blindly for the bottle. Faramir reached to settle it, placed his own steadier hands over his brother's shaking fingers.
How much had he had so quickly for his hands to be already trembling? He looked, but the tankard was half full and the bottle more than half. It was not the brandy that made his brother's fingers shake.
Eyes as bleak as the slopes of Ephel Duath raised up at last and held his own.
"Orcs."
"More than there are blades of grass upon the wold."
The rich bass voice was but a hollow whisper: certainty and awe, weariness and dread rode pillion its wake.
The pounding in Faramir's head became a roar. Baruk Khazâd! Khazâd ai-mênu! Rank upon rank of marching feet thundered in the half-forgotten dream that twisted before his eyes. Oh Valar, it had been true.
Desperate to erase the vision, find an anchor in their swiftly tilting world, he reached out and clasped his brother's shoulder. A trembling hand reached up to grasp his own.
Did their their father know what he had done? Did he understand where time and tide would take them now? He doubted it. Denethor thought only on Gondor's need. His sons were pawns to be used to their best advantage.
A new and formless fear clutched with twisted fingers at his heart. He believed he knew why it should be so.
"Boromir, he did not mean it."
"Oh yes he did, but it is kind of you to say so." A smile that was more a grimace quirked upon his brother's face. The tankard thudded on the table. Suddenly the older man heaved unsteadily to his feet.
Boromir walked slowly and stiffly over to stand beside the bed; stared up at the painting upon the wall. He saw not rock and wave and shingle but high and narrow cheekbones, a bow shaped mouth. From long ago he heard a soft, contralto voice, reduced almost to a whisper. "Promise to take care of him my bear…"
He would never tell Faramir of it, but once in a long while, just as now, it hurt to see the mother he needed so very much staring back from his little brother's eyes.
Mother, please tell me what did you see?
He did not understand. He did not want to understand. Frustration was a white hot anger that welled up yet again. How could their father who loved them treat them so? Did Denethor, after all, truly love anyone, even the wife he mourned down all these years? Did he truly love her, or had he loved that she loved him?
"Boromir?"
Callused fingers now reached to trace the swirls of silken thread upon the coverlet. The slate grey eyes at last looked back from out a face taut and grim. "Do you think that he truly loves us or only what he believes we are? What he wants us to be."
Faramir bit back a laugh. "He knows me, it is why he finds me wanting." He shook his head. He had been long used to hoarding the imagined teaspoonfuls of care doled out by a man who barely noticed he existed. Yet he knew his brother's need this night was greater than his own need to guard such precious treasure. "Love? Sometimes, sometimes I think so. But it must be buried deep; under duty, and need, and Gondor that he must think on first."
"You are lucky then" Boromir's own laugh was bitter. "His regard of you at least is not a fiction. I smile and act and do everything he wants and allow the lie. Faithless to myself. Sometimes it sickens me."
"No…"
A large and callused hand upraised to stop the thought.
With dismay, Faramir knew there was nothing he could do to turn this mood. Even his brother, he thought, knew not how to settle it. It had been aired for him, only ever him, just often enough now that the younger man had come to realize it was the other side of the coin, a payment, a weregild as it were, for the fearless, big-hearted and large living warrior the world knew. Without the one there could not be the other. He steeled himself to listen to what came. It was all he knew to do.
"You know little brother sometimes I hate that bastard Earnur. If he had not bloody well got himself killed we could not be here. The Steward's would be advisors only." In one straight gulp he downed the tankard.. "I too am tired to trying to be what he wants me to be. I have had his fair regard but it is an increasingly exhausting effort just to keep it. Perhaps I should let it go."
As if the words were too large an anchor, Boromir at last lay down, stretched his frame wearily upon the bed. He did not bother to undress or pull the cover over.
Faramir walked over and made to raise the blanket up. A hand shot out and grabbed his wrist. "Nay I cannot sleep." The bleary eyes burned like two coals within an iron brazier. "When I close my eyes all I see is dark."
It was agony to see his beloved brother suffer in this way. "Then I will stay."
Faramir toed off his boots, lay down upon the bed and, just as they had done as little boys, pressed his back against his brother's shivering form. Just had Boromir had done so many nights when the Wave came to haunt his dreams, holding back the night's dark embrace with warmth and words of comfort.
They lay so for many minutes: two sons; the one that had had his father's fair regard but was now no longer sure he really wanted it and the one that had rarely had it but thought that he still wanted it.
Neither of them spoke. What was there to be said? A page had turned and they follow on.
Near the midnight bell Faramir heard his brother's breathing slow but still the shivering did not abate. Worried, he turned and pressed his warm chest and flank against Boromir's back, wrapped an arm snugly against the dark.
This time a brother's love held back a different wave. Not one green and roiling, thrown up from the deep seabed, but a black and angry tide that poured dread across the land and deep into a heart.
.
~~~000~~~
.
Days later the mounted party halted at the crossings. Najir looked to the Gondorim sitting sullenly upon their mounts. Duty could not mask their great unhappiness.
Since ever Melkor turned jealous eyes upon the light Abaan had said. This endless clash had been the sorrow of the land, a wound in Arda and a ragged tear within its music.
Najir knew he spoken with an eloquence that would have brought tears to his father's eyes. He had not pleaded, he was too proud for that. He had spoken of the darkness that was coming and the restless gathering in the Lord of Fire's land, but the Steward of all Gondor remained unmoved. With a pang of guilt he wondered if he had spoke the truth when he told Goran their embassy would never be in vain.
Faramir turned troubled grey eyes upon him. "Will you fight now?" It was an unexpected question, he saw. There had been no thought of any other action. He bowed his head in shame.
Najir looked upon the golden leaves and remembered another autumn, the greening of the desert and its flowers, a boy practising his verse. Out beyond the shining river in the desert it was not yet cool, but here the waiting forests shed their leaves. They knew that winter was to come.
A sense of coming change lay within both men. Now also with a sense of loss.
Najir shook his head slowly, as if even that movement was a pain. Dark is a way and light is a path. How would he know that was he did was right?
Dark eyes held light gray and gave them the greatest honour: honesty. "I cannot stop the moon from rising. Suladan will come, and my people will bleed."
Almost as if he sensed what the Haradrim was thinking, Faramr let out a breath. When he spoke it was with a weight of years he did not own. "My friend, between our idea of right and wrong there lies a grey field, ploughed by necessity. Do what you must. Likely, I will meet you there."
My friend. Silent words given through a handclasp. Najir realized the tightness in his chest was love, but almost as he noticed it, it slipped away. Their time was almost gone.
As they thundered off down the Harad road, the horsemen gave their eager horses a longer rein. Heat and dust and blood lay far ahead. Behind a silken sash fluttered in the breeze, blue as the ribbon of bright water they never thought to see again.
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~~~000~~~
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One could sometimes anticipate events or be anticipated by them. More often we cannot see the link, the chain, the consequence of our acts. Suborned by a voice of twisted velvet, the Steward of Gondor did not see: that he had distrusted she who loved him as no other; that he had made a promise born of love to the waiting dark; that he had ignored one threat to their greater peril.
Denied an alliance, Najir watched his warriors not some months hence, his heart breaking at the beauty of their courage, his faith shaken by its futility. Proud and desperate, the Qahtani spilt their blood, their women wept, and still the riders of the Serpent thundered across the pitiless sands.
Saludan, now Emperor of all the land from Poros to the eastern wastes, was known to be a cruel and ruthless man. But not foolish one. Not ever that. A leader, he knew, could have enough concubines and wives but never enough good men and horses.
Judging swiftly the merit of what lay before him, the Emperor of all Harad did something unusual and unforeseen. He chose not to execute the leader of his newly subjugated people, kill their boys, nor take (many) of their women.
Najir, after months of endless struggle, many prayers and hopeless words, was dragged at last in chains before the Serpent throne. He prayed fervently that somewhere on the shifting sands his nephew and his shaman were still safe, would never know what he was about to do.
Desperate to stem the destruction of his people, their fabled poetry, their harsh but honourable way of life, the young Sheikh did the one thing he had sworn he would never do. Out beyond right and wrong there is a field. Oh my friend I am here but you are not.
Torn and bleeding, dazed by fatigue and pain, he knelt down and performed the ritual obeisiance: pressed his split and swollen lips to the soft and scented feet of the shaven priests, bowed his head, and swallowed bile, and swore an oath to the Lord of Fire.
So it was that, many years and many leagues hence, Najir found himself with his Serpent upon a field of red and dying.
He knew there could be no going back, could be no failure; that behind lay only the Emperor's terrible displeasure and yet farther back, the all consuming dark of the Lord of Fire's fearsome general.
He turned and looked upon their vast and seething host; the desperate, tortured Gondorim and felt pity for a moment take his breath. Suladan had been right. The Qahtani were the finest horsemen, scythed the Gondor ranks like so much pale, churned butter,
Dark is a way and light is a path. Now there was no way but forward.
Scimitar flashing through the cruelly cool and evil smelling air, he urged Na'man onward with all speed. Surely great Araw wept as his once faithful servant hewed a Captain of the Gondorim; a dart struck out of the ragin din; and a father's hope was lost.
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The words of the prophet are abridged from Rumi's gorgeous verse. Faramir's comment about right and wrong owes its inspiration there also. Thank you so very much to all who followed and reviewed over the busy holidays. My sincerest thanks as always to Annafan, Lia, Thanwen and Gythja for their comments and encouragement