The Dread Captain shows himself, a feint is blocked, two towers eye each other across the board
Norui 19, T.A. 3018
"Bagginsss?"
The fell sound, a rush of bleak and bitter wind, slithered urgently past lips as bloodless as a worm. One pale and haggard finger, shorn for eternity of its ring, lifted high in query.
Although no mortal creature could see its form, the very sound of its dreadful voice was sufficient unto the evil of the day. Beside the gate Saruman's creations cowered, threw themselves in terror and supplication upon the bare rock bones of Isengard.
Death and decay were the notes that rode the Úlairi's words. Their import chilled the wizard's heart but not the sound. For the barest of moments he smiled. Oh the irony that a King of Men, renowned in long Ages past for the beauty of his singing (but not his mercy and never his munificence) should have in servitude a voice of carrion. It was enough to make one think his rival harboured a sense of humour.
Safe inside the gleaming ebon fastness, Saruman had not expected to entertain such a question at his front gate, still less a retinue of the Nine. So urgent was their errand, so great their Master's fear of Gollum's capture by his enemies, that the Lord of Morgul and six of his fell companions had issued from the Vale. Long had Saruman's own spies watched the Shire. It had never dawned that Sauron would not yet know of it, would not know the name of a small Hobbit he sought for his own ends.
What did the Lord of Morgul really know? Could this too be a feint to test his truthfullness? It would not do to yield the knowledge he had been hoarding: the meaning of the name.
The White Council now knew him to be enemy. Unavoidably, the Dark One now knew him to be at least not friend.
He needed time. To rethink, to plan, now that his prize had flown. Rohan would still fall. It mattered not that Cirdan had withheld what should be his, that the Grey One had power still. He had his rings; skill and wit not granted others of their order.
For a fleeting moment the wizard considered offering up a tidbit. A vision. Rock wall and flickering torchlight. A hobbit and a man. Word of the prize. To the victor go the spoils, but only if one is part of the favored circle.
Yes, that might do. Might do quite nicely. Divert attention and set no small force to the task of attaining what he had sought for years: the death of Denethor's youngest son.
Saruman gathered his robes and paced hurriedly to the balcony, gazed again upon the one before his gate.
The light of Varda's early stars could not touch that which had no earthly form, yet he, born into the early Circles of the World, could perceive what to others was long gone: a pale figure, incongrously robed in white and a high golden crown upon his head. Oh vain had been the Lord of Angmar. It would be a pleasure to send him on his way.
Even as the wizard took a breath, felt the power to charm the words swell within his breast, he hesitated.
Had he himself not come to doubt the vision?
In long years no word of a hidden refuge had come to him. No image graced the Palantir no matter how assiduously he searched. He dared not have the Dark One think him further false….
Not all visions are true foresight. Lorien plays perchance.
A shaking hand rubbed along his jaw as a coal-black gaze glittered like the stone. What if the dream were true? What if, by some ill-luck, Sauron's minions found the pair? Ever the Ring sought to be reunited with its Master. With a shudder he imagined his disadvantage if that should come to pass.
His best defence must still lie in finding the prize for himself.
The Ring was not yet in the Council's hands. Of that he was quite sure. Though long had he watched Mithrandir where the wizard wandered, no glimmers of power had he used. The Grey One gathered nothing and no one to himself. If he had found the Ring he would not be still wandering, still in tatters, but triumphant, at the head of a mighty army. Awesome and fearsome to behold.
Nay, the wizard did not have it..but what of the vision? There could be only one purpose for which a hobbit kept it hidden, sneaking through the wilds….
The wise considered all possible hidden paths of fate. Should the Dark One lose his power, only one tower then would still stand upon the board…
The wizard's smile was wide. Better to be parsimonous with the truth than outright lie, no matter that he was mightier than the Dread One down below. His reply was short and sufficient to his needs.
The Witch-King and his companions rode in haste away, terror striking wild as the sparks that flew about their horses' heels.
~~~000~~~
A flash of sun on steel blinded his opponent for a heartbeat as the older man pushed down his helm. The two circled warily, swords raised, muscles warm below the plates of hammered metal.
Boromir sat on a ruined column and watched intently as Malec, his best lieutenant, took the measure of the new recruit. Around them, sun warmed the grey smooth stone of Ogiliath, lit the shadows of her crumbled colonades, sparkled on the shattered Dome of Stars.
A bout..this was just a bout but one with now deadly earnest. Away across Anduin and her great stone bridge an army gathered. The first scouts had passed word but a day before. Not just Orcs but Easterlings and Haradrim. A force such they had not seen in nigh two hundred years.
Finally! Something would happen. The months of endless talk and still more endless waiting had turned his wits to sap. Boromir needed to move, to do, to lose himself in action before he withered in despair. No more thinking and strategizing. No more boredom and frustration to drive him, maddened like a midge-bit stag, to drown his frustrations at the bottom of a pint.
Fed up with sitting through yet another round of endless bickering, he had fled the council rooms some days before, heedless of the censure on his father's careworn face. It was at the Kine that Amerith had found him later. The quick one had raised his spirits but more so the news that something could be done.
He had unfortunately not been able to hide from the bright green gaze. To the sound of swords clanging he thought once more on what Amerith had asked. What was he meant for? What would make him happy? To be Steward? To govern a people beset by endless war? Was the right leader born into the right time as the Duchess had opined? Or was it just that the times shaped, will he, nil he, the man to their clawing need?
Always (or nearly so, he thought ruefully, mindful of his single state) he had scrupulously done as asked. With courage. With daring. With all the heart that he could muster.
Bitterly, he felt at the ragged edges of his disquiet. Was it enough? Would it ever be enough? Like a scab that itched, he was drawn again and again, to worry at his father's words. Fool.
Aye, but a fool that his father needed. That Gondor needed ever. What did he need other than to feel oblivion, to forget for a while the hollow ache in the heat of combat or the lush softness of a woman's arms?
He shook his head. The most honest thing that I have ever done is love my brother. His answer to Amerith had been flip, but echoed still, for it had, all unintended, been the truth.
Grateful for the distraction from his thoughts, Boromir turned and watched the bout wind its way to the expected finish. Young Edric was having ever greater difficulty fending off the thrusts by Malec. Grimly, the taller man pressed his advantage, stabbed repeatedly at his too open offhand side until, with a clang, his sword touched the youngster's shining new cuirass.
The small audience cheered and clapped as Edric bowed to his superior. Shaking out his arm to release the pent up tension, the private made his way through the throng to gratefully dunk his dark head in the cool of a water barrel. Boromir watched him go. Had he ever been that young? How many times had he and Faramir squared off, the exuberance of youth long honed to grim determination by the grinding effort of the intervening years?
Of a sudden he could no more stand the wait.
"Edric!"
"Sir?" The smooth, beardless face snapped up, flushed with effort and now hopeful apprehension.
"Your guard is weak on your left side. Do not drop it so very often lad."
"Will you show me?"
"With pleasure." Gondor's best swordsman pulled out his grandsire's fabled blade. Confident in his reach and strength, blessed with speed for one so large, he knew it would not go long. He grinned. "First we spar..and then we will broach a cask of ale."
.
~~~000~~~
.
Before a battle the waiting was the hardest part.
So it always seemed to Gondor's Captain-General, who had, over the years, formed many habits to soothe his impatient nerves.
Per his routine the late reports had been received from the forward scouts. He had checked the perimeter of East Osgiliath one last time, walked her grand causeway along the river, echoing this night not with lilting strains of lute and viol but with the ring of steel on stone. They had no need for stealthy quiet. The enemy that had swiftly marshalled beyond the verge knew full where they were to be found. Boromir watched for many minutes the efforts of the masons, heartbroken to defile the ancient city's last standing bridge. Though he hoped it would not be needed, that the battle would not come to such desperate straights, he knew full well the exigency of one last obstacle. The enemy must not cross upon the morrow, whatever the cost to the city and its men.
He had then turned back toward the west, stopping on his round to jest or lay a large, strong hand upon a shoulder. Other soldiers were awake and sleepless before the battle. Young and old, the newly anxious and those anxious with other times and other comrades in their mind's eye, waited through the unnatural quiet of this night.
He gave what comfort that he could, bid the night watch well and then retired to his own bunk; to the other habit, the woman who could give him momentary solace.
It was hours later, close to moonset, when Boromir emerged, sought a quiet space in which to think. The barracks, once a grand row of stately townhouses, gave onto a small canal. He strode past the dark liquid ribbon toward a faint patch of green, a little garden, its ruined fountain no longer pouring water from Vana's urn to nuture the stone flowers at her feet.
With a start he saw a shadow, a figure bent, head in hands, beside the Lady's feet. He did not need the moon's last glow to know that pose, the weariness it held.
"Hail little brother." he said quietly, stopping close, not wishing to startle Faramir too badly from his reverie.
Drawing near, Boromir could just make out twin shadows that smudged the pale skin below his brother's light grey eyes. They were not limned by waning Ithil.
"Have you not slept?" he asked, keeping his voice light, calm as if he were but asking for the candlemark. There was something fey to Faramir's pose, something to his stillness he did not like. It was as if, were he to startle too very much, his brother would vanish. Melt into the city's shadows like one of Eldar he so revered.
After a long moment the pale, wan face rose up, mouth quirked slowly to one side. "Who is it tonight? Liriel or Ariel?" His little brother knew full well the elder's battle habits.
"Does it matter?" Boromir grinned and stretched, joints popping, oddly loud in the quiet of the darkened green. "They are both so alike…:"
"You are impossible." His little brother ruefully shook his head. Boromir would never change. It was one of the things he knew his little one loved best about him. He was constant, predictable, certain as the seasons. A contrast to their ever more chancy father.
"Unlike you little brother I am not happy as a hermit. You think too much."
"And you too little." Faramir replied. "It is not simply an itch you scratch with any handy brush. There are hearts and minds involved."
Boromir had ever been quick to insult where his honor was concerned–but after a moment, the sudden flash of anger quickly faded. He should not bait his brother so on something he knew he could not help.
Sitting down on the edge of fountain's lip the older man pulled a chased flask out of his pocket, unscrewed the top, and passed it over. As liquid apologies went it was not the best but it was all he had.
Faramir took a long swig, winced as the second rate brandy burned. Ten years it had been since they had laughed and shared that flask at grandfather's funeral. That was another lifetime. For Boromir that was when the page had turned in earnest, when the endless struggle had begun.
"What makes you think that I am happy?" His brother's voice was low, so low that he almost missed the words, gulping back a raw mouthful of his own.
"What about your duchess, does she not bring you some comfort?"
The black locks waved quickly in denial. "We are just good friends, Boromir, not lovers. You can speak to women, you know, not just bed them. Try it some time, you might find it enlightening."
Brother's normally booming laugh was the barest chuckle, pitched to not carry on the night air "Really? The performance had lasted so long and well I had come to think it no longer fake." He grinned, knowing his brother had never expected him to keep a secret.
"That was rather the point." Faramir grimaced in reply. Surely it was the harshness of the dregs? "It has kept Father off my back and I spend less time with him in the palace when you are not there." Neither of them commented on the excruciating evenings all together, the grim and brooding silences, how much Denethor had aged in recent months.
"But you are here." he observed, screwing back the flask's silver cap, running his thumb thoughtfully over its band of stars. "and for that I am very grateful."
There was no reply.
Alarmed he looked askance. His brother's gaze was oddly bright. Ripples of moonlight played within the wide dark pools, banded only by the barest edge of grey. He knew that look. It was the one he had seen on many nights when Lorien's touch came to trouble the younger man's rest.
"You dreamed again."
Faramir nodded and looked away. "Yes… I… I heard a voice. And words. . They will not leave me be. They…"
Boromir looked with growing dismay upon his brother, disquiet blooming in his chest. Faramir, who if he chose could put a stores order to perfect verse, was struggling to speak. It was if the words caught painfully, yet were so powerful they could not be denied. He was long used to his brother's dreams, so often mostly snatches, indistinct, vanishing with the dawn like so much gossamer. Not this…
Faramir was panting, desperate to force the words out. His soft and lilting baritone was cracked, hoarse as the rasp of a blacksmith's file on iron.
"The sky in the East grows dark. There is thunder and great fear, but in the West, I see a pale light, lingering still. Over all….. a voice. High and urgent, born on wings of need."
Then, at once, as if a dam had burst, words tumbled freely from his brother's lips.
"Seek for the Sword that was broken:
In Imladris it dwells;
There shall be counsels taken
Stronger than Morgul-spells.
There shall be shown a token
That Doom is near at hand,
For Isildur's Bane shall waken,
And the Halfling forth shall stand."
Faramir shook his head, scrubbed at his eyes as if the words blurred and swam before his sight. Perhaps they did. Boromir caught the gleam, the well of unshed tears. For a moment he was not breathing and neither was Faramir. There was a feeling in his heart much larger than what it could hold inside; it blocked his breath. He hugged his brother; hard. Held on, a living tether to the earth.
"What does it mean? What Bane?" Isildur's Bane had been an Orc's black sword. Did this mean the One who they did not name had some new weapon? A sword? Something fell, against which they could not stand? "Doom. You speak of doom. Is it Gondor's doom that is near at hand?"
"Nay." The questions seemed to shake Faramir out of his trance. The young man ran one thin hand through his dark, sleep-tousled hair. It was a mannerism they both shared: he when he was thinking, his brother when he must not.
"Nay…it does not strike me so. The light is pale but not of moonrise or sunrise. A glow, such as white tree held so told long ago. The voice is clear as if Lorien himself had spoken." Faramir shivered below his warm embrace though the summer's night air was warm. "It is hope.. Boromir..it is hope. Urgent aye, but there is balance: bane and its doom, light over all, a token."
The Captain-General shook his head. They were the ones who faced a host upon the morrow. All too soon the streets of the city would ring with the thunder of orc feet, the sound of war, relentless, like some great and evil machine grinding down the once fair colonnades and halls.
Boromir let go and rose unsteadily to his feet. He could think of naught more to explain the words, but they sent a sliver of fear, sharp as a nail, down through his soul. As ever, he hid his dismay in action, reached down a hand to pull his brother up. "Come, you must sleep a bit. Whatever else happens we will speak of this with Father when we may."
When the two fell back to sleep that early morn, flank to flank, like the little boys they had once been, neither dreamed that the foe who should assail them next, who would come in dread and flame upon the morrow, would be so great, so very fell. Nor did they dream that by his defeat they would swim together, one last time, cold Anduin and that by her waters they would be forever sundered.
.
~~~000~~~
.
Faramir stilled for a longer moment, let the sharpness in his hip subside before he strode, quickly as he dared, through the archive's ancient and usually welcoming front door.
He stepped stiffly but with care, hoping to hide the pain and debility from a schrewd grey gaze. It would not help for Father to think him weak.
Cahil's message to meet his Lord in the library had waited for him in the morning room. For once Faramir had not woken before his brother but found himself breaking his fast alone. He had gulped two cups of scalding tea and a piece of toast, chewed carefully around the split beside his lip. Valar, even now it seemed there was not enough tea to warm him up again, to chase away the shock of the river's icy grip.
It was he knew, the veriest miracle any of them on the bridge had survived. Amidst the flames, the reek, the clamour of the enemy, voice and arrows nearly spent, he had yelled encouragement, given cover to the last exhausted men to cross. Heart in mouth, he had heard the urgent blast of brother's horn, the deep roiling thunder of the rock as the charges blew, ere the ground gave beneath his feet. Battered and bruised, hip on fire, he had clawed his way onto the muddy river bank and flipped onto his back, coughed out what felt half the river's worth of green, weedy water.
With the profound sense of relief that he had come to expect every one of the past few days, he spied his brother in the room. Too many long anxious moments had passed before he had found the familiar helm, the mark of the Captain-General, not merely bobbing, but moving purposefully amidst the burning wrack. Boromir too had been injured, sported a livid bruise on one side his face and shifted uncomfortably in a low leather chair. Their father did not comment on either son. It was too common an occurrence now to warrant special notice.
His brother was speaking, worrying even now how close they came to utter ruin.
"We were outnumbered. The enemy has swelled her ranks with the Easterlings and Haradrim as I had feared. By Tulkas, we have denied the greater share the crossing, but have paid most dearly for it." Boromir shook his head, wincing at the sudden pain the gesture gave. "I do not understand. The scouts report they have melted away again like so much morning mist. We may have bought some time but surely with so black and fell a captain they will try again."
The Lord and Steward of Gondor leaned across a broad table strewn with papers. The look on his stern and noble face was grim. Clearly he was not happy at his heir's brief and straightforward summation. "I have long known the one of whom you speak gathered all to him in Minas Morgul. This is but a feint, I deem. The Lord of Morgul strove but to test us. He will not be happy with what he has found."
Faramir watched his brother open his mouth to frame a swift retort but then, noticing his brother's stiffened stance, close it up once more, the hard lines of his face softening.
"Good morning, sleepy-head. Are you better today?" he asked worriedly. Faramir had come out of the fray the worse of the two, with one long cut down his flank and hip and too many bruises to count. Varan, the chief healer of the houses, had expressed the opinion it was a miracle there had been nothing broken.
"Yes, thank you brother. Merely stiff and sore is all."
Their father glanced sharply up, took in his youngest's awkward stance and curtly nodded by way of greeting. "You may sit, if you prefer."
Faramir bowed and gratefully but gingerly took a seat, drawn by instinct to peruse the yellowed parchments upon the table. They looked to be old maps and from the earliest days of the kingdom if he were any judge. Minas Anor read the fading script beside the slope of Mindolluin. Knowing his father to be of the one of learned men in Minas Tirith Faramir had asked him the meaning of the riddling words. Surely if anyone could make sense of them would be Gondor's Steward, a man who, liked his younger son, had spent many hours in the City's vast and dusty archive, drinking in the lore and history of the land he loved.
"I have gleaned all that I can about your queries, Faramir. All that can be found in the little time to spare." Denethor shoved the sleeves of his sable robe up above his elbows and tapped impatiently at worn folio before him. "There are two swords of great legend that were broken: Turin's and Elendil's. Both broke below them, the one as he slew himself, the other even as he was lost in victory. But Imladris, that was of old the name among the Elves of a northern dale. Where Elrond the Halfelven, a master of lore and healing, was said to dwell."
Hope surged through Faramir's breast. Surely it was the latter, from a great king of Men, they were meant to seek? "And Isildur's Bane? Do you know aught of that?"
"Some weapon of the Enemy?" Boromir asked, leaning forward now with interest as far as his battered body would allow.
For the barest moment something dark flickered in his father's deep grey gaze. "There are many perils far greater than a weapon." Faramir waited but he did not explain.
It was clear his father knew something more, knew more of it but would not say. His son, with bitter experience of pressing him in this mood of late, forebore to ask. "Are the Halfing's naught but legend?" Faramir asked.
"Nay…" Denethor replied, pulling out a sheaf of coloured plates. "They are a little people. Stout but gentle to all account. At one time they could be found along the marshlands of Anduin, but that was many long years ago, when Dior was Steward of the City."
Faramir smiled. The painting to which his father pointed showed a curious image of a little mannish creature, shorter than a dwarf but with slightly pointed ears and furry feet. Rather incongrous for a symbol of great hope.
"Imladris is not on any map I have searched but it is said to lie o the north and west. It must lie beyond the further reaches of the Greyflood. I note that among the vales of the Bruinen, this one alone is not named."
Denethor tapped near an open space, oddly blank, where many names were shown. That was odd, odd indeed. Faramir peered more closely at the manuscript. Rhudar the land around was called. The name was unfamiliar. 'Remaining East' it meant, if his Sindarin was correct. T'was odd to be so named for a place west of the Misty Mountains. When he mentioned it his father snorted impatiently.
"You are thinking too much of the land today. That name comes from much farther back in the First Age, before the drowning of Beleriand. All that lay beyond the Ered Luin, beyond where now lie the Grey Havens of Mithland, was of the east."
"Then I must seek answers there." Faramir exclaimed, a sense of excitement building in his chest. For what other purpose could this dream have come? It had returned so often it felt urgent, with all the force of a command. "I must seek this sword and counsel as the riddle says." He did not want to think of the implication of his father's words. If the Enemy's attack had been a feint and by it they were already overmatched…. What other hope had they against the force that threatened Gondor now? Boromir's tortured words came back to him from years ago… Orcs..more than there are blades of grass upon the wold..
His father made a quiet noise of disgust, disdain deepening the creases on his brow. " I knew some in this family laboured under disillusion. I was not aware until this moment that illusion was full upon us. You? Searching after fabled elven lords? Mooning after a vision. I thank the Valar I have one son without wool in his head."
Denethor's scorn bit deep. There had been at least one vision he had had that his father had taken for the truth. Before Faramir had a chance to protest, he turned a shocked grey gaze at the sound of his brother's deeper voice.
"Father, give me leave to go."
"You?!" The Lord of Gondor looked up, as surprised as if his son had just announced that he could fly.
"Yea." Boromir replied. "I have had the vision too. It came to me yestereve. The riddle, the summons was the same. I believe that we must heed it."
Swiftly their father's anger fell on what he saw as its source. "The same as your brother? Your rooms must be too close. Now his puerile imaginings are seeping into your mind."
From the firm resolve set upon his eldest's face, it was clear that Denethor's words had little impact. The Steward tried again. "I need you to stay here. To be the Captain-General I have trained you to be. Not off puzzling a riddle, some fantasy of your brother's."
"It is no fantasy." Boromir argued, but his father raised his hand in warning.
"Enough. I have entertained this conversation far too long."
Faramir stood on suddenly shaking legs. He felt as he had in the river some the days before, caught in a current, in an undertow that he could not see but must surely fight.
"You cannot mean to ignore this?" he cried, incredulous. "We must heed it. It could be our only hope. Gondor's need is great…." This was, he knew, something he was meant to do. Not born to it perhaps, but certain none the less. Scribed now inside so hard it was a physical pain to argue more.
"Gondor's need? What do you know of Gondor's need?" Denethor spat. Neither the Steward nor the father suffered to be challenged so. "Once again I see you trust your faulty visions more than your father. If you believe by this heroic quest that you would gain some crumb of my regard, jealous of your brother, seeking to supplant him in my favour, think again!"
"My lord, no!. Not ever…"
Faramir looked up at the hoarse sound that came from across the room. For a second the careful mask on Boromir's face was gone. Below it he was so raw, so hurt and open – like the wounds he'd seen on his own hip, hit by piece of stone as they tumbled down. With a sharp pain in his chest Faramir realised his brother was as much, or maybe more, troubled by the vision than he was. As shocked and grieved by their father's lack of trust. Then the moment passed and Boromir's face was merely grim and set.
Slowly his brother rose, pulled himself up to his full height. "My Lord, you must let me do this. Valour needs first strength and then a weapon. We have sufficient of the first but not the second. If there is something in this vale, some thing that will help us not be over matched..we must seek it, though the way be long and perilous."
The forceful words must have pierced some shell that had enraped his father for at last he hesitated, the hard grey gaze smoldering so darkly surely it must burn a hole in the precious map. "You may be right."
Then, just as swiftly as he had refused, Denethor came to judgement. "Let it be so. Boromir you will depart in two months time. Not before. We need still to marshall the defenses here. It will give you time to collect all that you need and settle orders with your commanders."
"What?! Faramir looked between both men with anger and disbelief. "But I am the one to whom the summons came!" His father would send Boromir before him? The sense of rejection in that moment was so intense it took his breath. Though he knew it to be absurd to feel that way (for did not always Denethor favor Boromi), by its very absurdity it hurt the more.
"Silence!" roared his father. The Steward had made up his mind. He would not suffer to be gainsaid now. "You will obey me in this as in all else. Captain."
The lash of his rank bit hard. What was there now to do but as he was bid?
"I am yours to command my Lord." Faramir answered, the words flat and very hard. His father's gaze lingered for a long minute, taking their measure before he nodded.
They were dismissed. Both men bowed correctly, made to walk stiffly toward the door, but to only one did the Steward offer up his ring to kiss.
Faramir bent, choked on the bile that rose, pressed dry lips to the cool smooth opalescence of the stone. It shimmered, all colours of the rainbow. How could he resent so intently so rare and beautiful a thing?
As they left the audience behind neither man spoke, each lost to their troubled thoughts: the older son of what he had yet to do; the younger of what he had done.
Not for the first did Faramir wonder sadly how many times you must tell a lie before you believe it for yourself?
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~~~000~~~
The months that followed passed in a blur. All too soon Boromir was packed. He had maps and his kit, been instructed well and long in the art of solo trekking by his anxious little brother.
When the last saddle bag was tied securely Boromir looked around the forecourt. There was no big crowd of well-wishers, this was an unofficial mission. He had hugged his father in his study one last time, bid farewell to his lieutenants at the barracks and kissed a blushing Nera as soundly as he dared. All that remained was to take leave of his little brother who stood quietly to one side, smiling his encoureagment.
Boromir was not fooled. There was a determined look to Faramir's gaze that gave away how much he hated this, how much he wished that he were the one to go.
There was nothing left to do. "Come here brother…" He reached to grab the slighter man in a bone-crushing hug. His throat had closed. The words he would have said were gone.
Faramir pulled back and roughly cleared his own throat, fingered teasingly the fabric of his sleeve. Boromir had eschewed armour for the lightness of a leather jerkin but not his embroidered shirt.
"I have never seen you look so spare, so lowly in your dress."
He snorted. This from the one who barely noticed what he wore and looked faintly rumpled at the best of times. "Aye well I durst not look too ripe a target on the road. But I am going to meet with an Elven Lord. I need at least to be presentable."
He fingered his silver collar hidden below his shirt. With its moonstone and sigil of the White Tower it should be enough to gain admittance though he carried no papers from the Steward. "Which reminds me." He quickly twisted off the silver moonstone ring of his office and handed it to a startled Faramir. Twin to his collar, it was ancient and like the Steward's ring a symbol of their house. It would be hard to hide.
"Take it and keep it safe." Before the younger man could protest Boromir swung up onto his stallion's back, settled his sword and buckler comfortably. "You shall be a fine Captain-General. By the time I am back Father will not let give it back."
Faramir shooked his head, reached up and clasped his brother's forearm, eyes pleading for but a moment more. "Nay, there is none other to replace you. But I shall do my best."
Boromir kept still, let the weight and warmth of that welcome grip sink in. Found the words that needed to be said. "I need to do this. You must let me. This is something I can do for him."
Faramir nodded and Boromir smiled in grateful thanks. He dared not explain himself the more. The fear he knew these days, the one unleashed by his brother's words, was hard to untangle. There were so many threads: Father's rapid aging and displeasure. The bleak, unending worry in people's eyes. His own duty to be heir, to be Steward himself one day and preside over a proud land's fall. It mattered not which was the keenest, they were all sharp, like shards of glass he could not hope to pull from beneath his skin.
The days' hot, dry wind gusted, snapped at the pennants riding high on the crystal pinnacle of Etchelion's tower. With start, Boromir looked up. The standard of the Stewards, white and unadorned since the days of Meneldil, broke and fluttered from the battlements in the morning breeze.
He remembered. A soft voice from so long ago. Murmured words of comfort. A rasping breath and a gentle hand on sleep-damp locks. The day that is your happiest.
With a gasp, a flash of pure and liquid pain. He knew. The second son was not the only one to have shared his mother's dreams.
Perhaps…perhaps now it would not hurt so very much. Neither of them could please the man their Father had become. It was the veriest relief to stop trying.
Boromir reached down with one great hand and pulled his brother forward, ruffled Faramir's hair as he a done as a boy. Leaned down and planted kiss upon his brow.
His brother smiled at the touch and raised his gentle hand to hold his own. The elder strove to imprint it on his mind: the last smile from his 'little one' he would ever see.
Almost he spoke of it, but he could not. Would not torture his beloved brother so.
He said, at last, only what he needed.
"I love you little one. Try to take care of Father for me. Don't strangle him."
A laugh lit the light grey eyes but then just as quickly stilled. Faramir was too good at reading him by half, at reading everyone, but even he could not see everything.
Boromir also had a little skill in hiding uncomfortable truths from their all too-knowing father. His elder brother had learned a great many things by dint of time and practice.
Faramir searched anxiously his brother's eyes. "Why, why are you saying this?"
"Someone has to pay my gambling debts."
The laughter broke the tension as he had hoped. Better still it gifted him another of his brother's shining smiles. He drank it in, greedily.
That smile. You are the best of us. I love you beyond all reasoning.
Boromir gathered up the reins and wheeled his horse around, looked skyward once again.
He understood: the heights…his happiest day, the ruined city, a faded glory that could not be again.
He knew not how or why, but suddenly his heart felt oddly light. The struggle was being laid down. At that moment he felt it so familiar it was a release as fierce as any he had known.
The path was set. Qalvanda, the Road of Destiny and of Fate. From the first step it led directly and only to Namo's Hall.
This is my road.
Boromir spurred his stallion, pressed his knees quickly to his flanks, and did not look back beyond the gate.
~~~000~~~
.
Minas Tirith, 2987 T.A.
Black hair tousled, a sleepy crease from the pillow on one side of his face, a young Boromir stood, eyes blinking blearily in the wan light of the hallway torch.
Oh my bear… He looked so adorable, so young and vulnerable, Finduilas' arms ached to pull him in and hug but she held them carefully to her side.
A mother's cossetting was not so easily welcomed now he was a lofty ten.
"Get your hugs in early." Her Aunt Ivrenna had had the right of it, the veteran mother of five grown sons. Now well past her chin, her eldest was already tall. Sturdy and strong and so like his grandfather Ecthelion at times it made her wonder what of Dol Amroth she had shared. Even so he had something of Adrahil: a sense of fairness, an unflinching honesty, with himself and others that already made other boys look to him to lead.
"Is Fara well? I heard him cry out." The anxiety in his features made her heart clench a little more. He had his father's eyes…
"Yes love..he is. It was just a dream." Just..such a simple word, so inadequate to this instant. She placed a hand to the tired stitch in her side. "Should we get you back? You have practice early in the morning do you not?" Her breath rasped, thin and airy as a ghost. She had talked too much and still had far to walk.
Time.. she had no time. But there in a pair of storm grey eyes was longing, love marked in the still soft face, the fierce proud planes of manhood still years away.
"Would you like me to tuck you in?"
The boy nodded and the hand that reached for hers was warm. Its sure steadiness soothed her faltering heart as together they slipped back into his room.
Boromir climbed back into his bunk and laid his head upon the pillow but did not close his eyes, the crease of worry had not left. "Is Faramir asleep again? Did you sing for him? That usually works."
With a start she wondered: how many nights her eldest had been the one to soothe his little brother while she, exhausted from simply drawing breath, had obliviously slept on?
"No love. I told him a story."
"What story?" Nienna, merciful one. he wanted to know it too. So that he could tell it should the need arise. What could she say that would not frighten even so fierce and bold a warrior as he? They had too few words these days for her to waste them with a lie.
"What I have seen for him my love. A day of pure, bright happiness with his sons and little daughter." Finduilas smiled and wondered fleetingly at the image in her minds eye. Blond. The boys were blond. She did not know from where that colouring should come. Would never know and the knowledge for a moment pierced her heart.
"Oh."
She smiled fondly down at the disappointed frown. Her eldest was that age. Girls and children held no allure for him. Not yet. Wanting nothing more than to see his smile again, she offered another glimpse. "What settled him the best my Bear was the vision I gave of you."
"Me?" Her vision swarm, the smoke from the single candle widened, became hazy in the gloom. Surely there is no harm?
"Triumphant, with your grandfather's great sword raised high and all around the men shouting your name in jubilation. Osgiliath is yours. It is your greatest victory. The day that is your happiest. "
The lad smiled and snuggled down once more beneath the covers. His mother bent swiftly as she could, dropped a gentle kiss on the straight black locks before he could protest the move.
She rose but at the door Finduilas paused; watched the peace of sleep begin to blur his features but not take the gentle smile from off his lips. Holding her skirts in shaking hands, Finduilas began the slow, tortured process of making it back to her own room.
She had not planned to share so much, but his smile, poised on the cusp between boy and man, so like the one that once graced his father's handsome face, had quirked. He was her blithe and sunny boy. The one so present, so in the moment and untroubled by any eldritch gift.
She never thought that he would come to understand in time what the vision truly meant….
.
~~~000~~~
.
In a far, fair hall, on the storied loom of time and fate a thread has slipped and come in time will break.
A new thread the Weaver sets upon the weft, bright gold and twinning with another, a double strand, strong as mithril steel. This will not ever break.
That night for the first time in many days Faramir slept and did not dream of Rivendell.
He slept and dreamed instead of a woman.
Her hair was golden and her hands were white. Small, yet strong, with fingers cold and tipped by silver frost. Her words formed hard and jagged angles upon the air. A shield, a bulwark for the trembling spirit that lay behind.
He offered his own hands such as they were: wrists raw from the scrape of iron, skin dry as paper, alive with flames that licked but did not burn.
Bound by duty, held fast within the flame, he forced words past lips become cracked and parched with heat.
"Take my heart and I will lay down my weapons. Break my shackles and set me free."
She reached. The touch of her biting, bitter rime was cool. Welcome as a scented cloth upon a fevered brow.
The Weaver smiled, sent the weft of moon and sun threading lightly across her loom.
They each shall assuage the other.
.
-
Thank you so much to claudeman27 for following earlier this summer. I hope this chapter was worth the wait. I have taken a little liberty with canon timelines..compressed a bit the likely time between the first vision and when Boromir had his. And deliberately I have shied away from the 'how' of the breaking of the bridge. I picture mini black powder charges blowing up the arch keystones and perhaps a bit of Numenorian magic.
As ever grateful thanks to Annafan, Wheelrider, Thanwen and Klose for their encouragement, very helpful suggestions and wrangling my verb tenses into shape.