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A new game begins. One Queen must feint, a Knight's strategy does not work, a new King ponders his attack.
The feeling that huddled, cat-like, purring and quietly surreptitious, below her ribs was not one Lothiriel of Dol Amroth was much accustomed to. A sense of contented selfishness had settled underneath her skin and, try as she might, she could not bring herself to feel guilty for the fact.
Her cousin had survived. It had been far far too near a thing losing her aunt's family all at once; and now to simply sit and watch over him was a blessing beyond price.
She had come to the room where Faramir was housed as soon as she could get away. The last bed pan of her roster had been changed; another groaning, barely conscious soldier had been stripped of his bloody bandages and checked for suppuration. She had fetched and carried, bandaged, washed and fetched again. Endless hurts that needed endless acts of (sometimes futile) kindness and when that failed simply reassured anxious or pain-wracked men. She had no official training but years of helping Aunt Ivriniel and her own keen intelligence had taught her what she could and should not do. It was a skill (quite unlike that of other noble ladies who liked to 'help') that garnered more than one grateful smile from Varan, the Houses' senior healer.
Long past the first clear, ink-blue nightfall in far too many days Varan had taken one look at her red-rimmed, swollen eyes and known. She was dead on her feet, wearied as were they all by the unceasing stream of wounded men, but more than that; she was heartsick. It had not seemed possible that Faramir could die, could simply burn away, and yet when she had asked Ioreth for news the old woman had teared up and turned away.
Each candlemark had found her looking toward that room, anxious for report of any change, lips bitten red with worry. Each time the silent headshakes came she turned back to her tasks.
"'My lord, you called me. I come. What does the king command?"
Her cousin's fateful words had raced through the wards like a golden flame set to the torches on Mettare night.
Praise Este. Faramir had survived and at Varan's nod she had raced too, lifted up her stained and rumpled skirts and simply ran along the corridor (unladylike and unconcerned), dodging servants, rolling chairs and (more carefully) the walking wounded.
By the time she had squeezed herself into the little room and found his tired eyes (exhausted, dark-smudged, but certifiably awake) shining up at a scruffy, but somehow oddly noble Dunadan she cried openly with relief.
Peregrin, the valiant Halfling was by his kinsman's side. Mithrandir had left with her father to see to the defense of a city without a gate. The King and his foster brothers were yet among the wards, ministering to those struck down by the Black Breath. The homely space was now quieter. It was early morn and what cocks had not been sent away had yet to crow. The sky beyond the shuttered window was just lightening to a greyer blue and the dark strain of interminable yesterday was, if not a distant memory, at least a page that might be turned.
The Princess, self-appointed guard and nurse, watched the deeper rise and fall of the fresh-scented sheet above pale but unfevered skin. Sometime about the last evening bell fatigue had overtaken Faramir again and he had slept. Beregond (elated beyond words to find his lord survived) kept watch for most of the night but had just excused himself to change and rest. The young guardsmen certainly needed it. How he had still stood after days of fear and interminable strain she hardly knew.
Lothiriel sat silently in the little chair beside the narrow bed (too tired herself to change) and reflected on how it felt selfish but so necessary to do this one and easy thing. There were other men in the Houses now more seriously ill, horribly wounded, needing to be watched, but in the hours after Bergil had come running with the startling news of Faramir's recovery, she not been able to tear herself from her cousin's side for long. A small part of her heart could not quite believe he would not succumb again.
Methodically, she wound the fresh bandages in the flat wicker basket on her knee, so focused on a chore that she could do almost without thought that she did realize at first notice the lightly stirring limbs.
"Thiri…" A quiet, raspy voice intruded from beyond her little world. She looked up and found her patient awake again.
"Faramir! "
At her startled exclamation, tired eyes focused on her face, blinking heavily as if sleep and morn were yet a heavy weight. They were so welcome and so familiar- the clear grey that all her brothers and her father also had.
"Just a moment, let me help." His left arm was bound up in a sling to ease the weight on wounded muscles that had just begun to heal. She laid the basket down and slipped one surprisingly strong arm behind his back, stilling her face to a smile despite the shock of finding bones protruding in his back. Days of fever and weeks of unyielding strain had melted flesh away. She set a pillow to prop him up a bit and sat back down, leaned forward to check his gaze. There was no lingering fever that she could see.
"How do you feel?"
Faramir frowned, shifted uncomfortably and put his free hand up to the bandage on his shoulder as if surprised to find it there. "Stiff. Sore. Weary beyond words. So parched I think I could drink the Anduin near dry." His voice, unused for days, was steady but reed thin.
"That is the fever," she explained, pouring a cup of water from the beaker by the bed and lifting his shoulders once more to help him take a sip. "You will need to take more fluids in the days ahead. And eat to regain your weight. Are you hungry? Can I send for some breakfast now?"
That brought a sudden grimace. "No thank you. Not quite yet." But then as if he felt it churlish to refuse, Faramir smiled apologetically. "What did I do to merit so skillful a nighttime nurse?"
The protest was automatic. ""Hardly so. I volunteered to watch over you. Aunt Rini is helping with the more difficult cases per her greater skill."
The barest of smiles quirked. "Excellent news. Then they shall not dare to not recover."
"Faramir!" Lothiriel huffed out a breath and mock frowned at his assessment of the most formidable of their family. Iviriniel was legendarily determined and a highly accomplished healer. That he could joke a little bit after all that had come to pass was certainly a good sign.
Reassured, she slipped her own small hand into his larger, calloused one. It felt right to anchor him just a little bit but even as she did she felt a subtle greasiness upon his palm. Oil? Or sweat? At first she was unsure but then she looked down to the bandages across his collarbone. They too were streaked by a smear of darker honey-gold. Lamp oil. Nienna. Denethor had soaked Faramir's clothes in the heavy oil and it had clearly not been suitable to bathe him in warm water whilst the fever raged.
A small shudder wracked through her chest. She must not think, could not, think of that.
"If you won't eat now the least I can do is clean you up." She rose and sought an errand boy out in the hall. The dark-haired youth who lingered just outside looked familiar.
"Bergil!" she exclaimed, smiling at the correctness of the hasty bow.
"Yes m'lady?"
"Would you please bring some hot water and soap and soft cloths from the station down the hall? And please let Master Varan know that Captain Faramir is awake? I believe both he and my Father wished to see him sometime this morn."
"Right away my Lady.."
Back inside, she refilled his cup and sat back down again, noticing the telltale gleam in his black locks. They too were greasy to the touch. "You are something of a mess. I expect you will feel better for a wash."
Faramir nodded and shifted a little uncomfortably. She found herself longing to brush away the sudden furrow of worry on his brow. "Did much of the city burn?"
Burn? Why ever should he ask that now? Lothiriel clasped her hands together to stop a rather inconvenient tremor and schooled her face to a suitable hopefulness. She must not think of burning things.
"Parts of the first circle. Thank heaven the preparations stopped the flames from advancing any farther. "
"Amerith and her teams worked very hard," Faramir ran his free right hand worriedly through his hair and sighed. The gesture was achingly familiar. Boromir had done it too. "It saddens my heart to think of the City badly damaged. I can smell it."
Smell it? Lothiriel's heart tripped unsteadily. Her cousin had always had a remarkable sense of smell: her brothers' had jokingly suggested he knew the Enemy's movements not by intelligence but by the stench upon the wind. Gandalf had rescued him before Denethor could set fire to the faggots, but now that the wind had turned to westward the smoke from ruined Rath Dinen was drifting by. She sniffed, noting the faint acrid taint for the first time in all the hours she had sat. Perhaps she had simply not noticed it through the stronger smells of blood and unguents that permeated the Healing House.
Lothiriel rose and closed the window shutters, stayed a moment with fingers resting on the latch, feeling oddly battered and praying for Bergil's quick return. Mithrandir had requested that none tell Faramir of the manner of Denethor's passing until he was quite healed. That was starting to look to be quite a chore. He was undoubtedly going to ask her about his father and she was not sure she could hold him off for long.
Lothiriel grimaced. It was a sometimes unhelpful Dol Amroth family trait to be quite unable to frame a convincing lie.
"My lady?"
Praise Este Bergil was back. She flashed him a quick smile of gratitude and took the proffered supplies; set about arranging them on the little painted dresser. The ewer of water was blessedly warm. With soap and some careful scrubbing the oil should come off quite easily.
Faramir eyed her ministrations warily. "You are not going to bathe me here..?"
"You are weak as a kitten after days of fever, Fara. You cannot do it for yourself." He did not protest more, merely made a face and lay back deeper in the pillows. She smiled fondly. He was as much of a baby when indisposed as Erchiron or Elphir. Briskly, she set to the business of cleaning him with the same gentle but impersonal efficiency as she had used on others many times in the past few days, sponging the sweat and oil from off his chest and neck and careful not to jostle his wounded shoulder too very much. Twice she changed the basin and began again. Finally content to let her work, Faramir closed his eyes, smiling faintly at some stray thought.
"What is so funny?" she asked, wringing the cloth out and dabbing on more soap.
"This. That you should be washing me. Do you not remember that the last time I washed you we both got into trouble?"
Her tinkling laugh lit the quiet room. "Stars, yes! I am afraid we must explain."
Bergil, solemnly standing guard by the heavy oaken door coughed once. "Begging your pardon Princess but what is said here stays here. I have not heard a thing."
"Cheeky lad. He has already learned the first duty of a guard." Faramir winked and Bergil blushed bright as the sunrise that was soon to come. "It has become part of family lore. I was just back from manoeuvers near the Poros; teaching Lothiriel how to skulk like a proper Ranger."
"And I was not quite so steady as you thought."
Her cousin chuckled at the memory. "Sadly, no. You fell head first out of the hayloft into the stable muck. It took me ages to clean you up."
"Aunt Rini's face when she found us both…."
"Oh yes, " Faramir grinned. "You were naked as the day you were born and I was soaked from all the squirming as I washed your hair. "Inappropriate behaviour from a young man who should know better" was the phrase she used.
I was nineteen and she was five," he added helpfully for Bergil's benefit.
Lothiriel, by now reduced to helpless giggling, pitched her voice to Rini's bird-like, cut-crystal tones. "One must always behave with proper decorum."
"Well Boromir missed that dispatch…" They both chimed in in perfect unison with Faramir's original riposte, laughing and gasping at the memory of Ivriniel's reaction. Neither had ever been quite sure what had startled their Aunt the most; Faramir talking back or her own inability to keep a grin off of her face.
"Oh I love that story," Lothiriel sighed happily. Yavanna's blessing it felt good to laugh. She set the basin aside and started to run a soft toweling cloth across her cousin's chest. By the door even Bergil was grinning shyly, but if she had hoped to lighten Faramir's grieving heart for long it not work. Just as she wrung the last of the damp out of his hair his lips pursed thoughtfully.
"Father was most displeased."
Oh Valar, the last thing she wanted to do was to remind him of her Uncle. The memory had seemingly made him quieten more and so she let Faramir lay still, finishing her work, all the while wracking her brain for a more neutral topic.
"Thank you,' he said finally, struggling to sit straighter up when she had folded the sheet and blanket back up to his chest. "Have I missed much? Beregond explained last night that Uncle brought me back and the cavalry is mostly safe. What of my men? There is surely a meeting of the Captains. Father I expect is too busy to visit, but could Imrahil brief me when they are done? Or perhaps Madril or Damrod could go in my stead?"
Lothiriel blanched. Nienna, how could she admit that every man he had just named save her own father was actually dead? She laid a none too steady hand on his unbound arm and pressed carefully for emphasis; willed a certainty into her voice she did not feel.
"Your men are all well taken care of. You brought them back when none thought any could survive." Sudden tears pricked at the corners of her eyes. Dol Amroth had been so very lucky. Her father and her brothers were virtually untouched. It seemed unfair, in the face of so much suffering, to have been so fortunate.
A well of sadness darkened his light grey gaze. "Not all."
"More than any other could," she replied, as firmly as she could. This topic felt like sailing in uncharted shallows. What could she say to redirect him back? "Your only duty now is to rest. Do you not remember the directions from the King?"
A brilliant smile suddenly lit the pale and haggard face. Yes. Yes, thankfully he did. "I cannot quite believe he is truly real and not some figment of my evil dreams. Elbereth, Thiri, we are so blessed to have snatched victory from defeat."
"We are."
For a moment she breathed easier, certain that the rocky shoals had passed but then the dark brows furrowed once again. "Father I suspect was his usual self and visited well past any civil time. He will not be pleased that the King here. Is he being civil?"
Lothiriel bit her lip at his frighteningly sharp regard. Denethor of course had not visited Faramir at all. He had been already dead. What could she say? Ignored the first issue and focused on the second.
"Lord Aragorn is camping outside the city.." she began, swallowing hard past the lump in her throat.
A deeper frown creased Faramir's pallid face. "He does not wish to come?" Lothiriel was forced to clutch her skirts to keep her fingers still. "Thiri maybe you could you ask him? I know I ask a lot, but I must speak to him."
Valar, what could she say to that? She was not lying but was certainly omitting almost all of the truth. He already seemed to sense that she was upset but mistook the cause, thinking it due to conflict between two rival lords. She had no wish to lie and it was foolish to try at any rate. The father and his son were not so very different in their acuity. She had to steer him from this line of questioning.
"Fara I…"
"Is he refusing..?" a strained voice, thick with emotion, cut across her words. "Is he very angry about the rout? I held them together as long as I was able… "
" Of course you did," she replied, stricken that he should doubt himself. "No one can doubt your courage."
"He did." The retort was flat and hard. The pale face turned away upon the pillow. "And then… we…we parted badly."
Oh gods! Despair welled up like a bitter spring. Her beloved cousin wished to repair the strain with a father he could never see again. How horrible was that thought? What could she say now that was not crueler than the truth? To string him along, to give him hope of reconciliation, would only cause deeper pain.
Swaying just a little, feeling suddenly beyond exhausted and afraid to blurt out the truth, Lothiriel put up a hand to shield her face. Damn, damn her eyes, but they seemed to be leaking once again.
"I am sure that he knows you love him," she finished lamely, picking up the basin of dirty water like a shield. A greasy slick of wet splashed upon her dress. "I have to bring the basin back." She didn't. But suddenly their unwitting game of cat and mouse was all too much.
"Thiri…"
She was a coward. She simply fled.
.
~~~000~~~
.
"Ohhh!"
The sudden cry of startlement rang out just a moment before the tepid water hit.
Eomer-King stood, stunned and blinking, water dripping from his nose and chin, holding the forearms of his assailant in an effort to keep her from falling to the floor.
"Oh my Lord! Forgive me…"
The grey-clad healer's breathless apology cut off as quickly as it began. "I am so sorry. So sorry, my Lord. I..I was distracted. I did not see you there." Before he could protest, a handkerchief emerged and was wiped efficiently across Eomer's tunic front. It did not do too much to help the mess. The large basin had been full.
He wiped his hand across his dripping beard, flinging the wet away and trying to smile in a somewhat reassuring manner. The young woman did not look up, having discarded the rather fine, but now soaked handkerchief in favour of a drier corner of her apron. He hoped the substance was mostly water. The lingering greasiness on his fingertips did not bode well.
Eomer grasped her small and rather delicate-looking hands in his larger ones and tried to gently halt her efforts. "Please, no harm done mistress. It is the least noxious thing I have had splashed upon me since coming from the battle front and the pyres."
"Ohhhh!"
His words were meant in jest but clearly they did not help for as soon as they were out the poor creature dissolved. Tears that had before merely glinted in (rather pretty) long dark lashes now spilled out to stain her cheeks. Whatever had he said? Aghast, contrite, and suddenly afraid that he had hurt her in some way Eomer found himself pulling the woman closer into his arms. She was slender and taller than most women here yet her head fit comfortably below his chin.
"Shh.. No really mistress, all is well. It was an accident. Though I fear your basin is beyond repair." That brought a fresh storm of weeping and, much alarmed, he looked farther down.
The broad earthenware bowl lay smashed upon the floor: it had been fairly heavy (as his toe had certain cause to know) and he briefly wondered if she was cut? The small white hands that gripped both the sodden handkerchief and apron end were trembling but there were no cuts that he could see. Perhaps he had trod hard upon her toes? All he could see of those were a pair of red-tinged and water-stained leather shoes. "Are you injured? You are not hurt?" he asked.
The grey headrail shook lightly against his chest. That at least was a relief. Eomer freed a hand from upon her back and tipped up the tear-stained face. The pretty heart-shaped features were white and dark smudges shadowed a pair of luminous bright grey eyes. She was obviously exhausted from her work. Her wary glance toward the room she had just exited suggested she was worried about some charge.
"No, I am not hurt. And I am so very sorry. It is just that we nearly lost them all! And he is asking questions. And I could not stop it anymore."
Her mournful rush of words confirmed his fears. Poor thing. Probably a guard who was the last of his small company. Eomer had heard that the Steward's younger son had lost a third of his men during a hopeless charge against the Enemy. What a horrible waste of life.
He shifted uncomfortably, shuddering at the thought of incurring such a loss, and felt a potshard crunch underfoot. Blast. And on top of such strain she was probably worried the Warden would dock her wages too. Eomer fished out his own handkerchief from inside his tunic and handed it silently across. "I should have paid better attention where I was bound, mistress. I can pay for the broken pot."
The fine linen square was folded neatly and dabbed delicately at her eyes. The stream of tears had stopped and only a faint hiccuping came out. "Oh. That is so kind of you but there is no need." The young woman took deeper breath and the sudden warmth that crept into his chest. Focus, Eomer. Tumbling a pretty lass should be the furthest thing from his head. "I have ruined your tunic. My brother has one very like it. Perhaps if you tell me where to find you I could arrange for a new one to be delivered."
Arrange? Ah, now he understood. The fine dark hair beneath the headrail and elegant high cheekbones were those of a noblewoman; one who had stayed behind to help the denizens of the city. Oh Bema. She was a high born Gondorian lady, He was not her relative and he just had touched her skin.
Eomer abruptly dropped his arms and took a careful full pace back.
"Forgive me, I only meant to console, my Lady…?"
"Lothiriel."
Lothiriel?! As in Princess Lothiriel? Tulkas' rod he had inadvertently touched the Prince of Dol Amroth's only daughter! How many Gondorian rules of etiquette he had broken in five minutes flat? Appalled that he might have insulted the kind and gracious man who was his host, he hastened to apologize.
"Princess, it is an honour to meet you. My sincerest apologies. I can only excuse my … familiarity… as a result of surprise and lingering fatigue." And lingering distraction, although he did not speak of that. He felt a little white and weary himself, more troubled by the discussion with Eowyn than he really cared to admit.
He bowed low in the Gondorian fashion his grandmother had sometimes favoured and took her hand. "Eomer. Eomer of Ald… Rohan," His smile nearly became a grimace when his traitorous tongue slipped on the final word. Aldburg was his home. It was automatic to say so but now he was the King. He just as surely belonged to all of Rohan now.
"Your grace." If she noticed his subtle slip she was too well bred to comment. He was met with the startling sight of a rather wobbly but still impressively executed curtsy nigh to the floor. Swiftly, he extended his hand to raise her up. "Now I understand the tunic. You are, I think, staying with Father at the townhouse. That tunic might well belong to Erchirion."
"Elphir, actually." He found himself replying to empty air. The Princess was crouched down at his feet, clearing the broken pieces from the grey flagstones and quite expertly using her stained apron as a sling.
What the? Well obviously this princess was not shy of doing basic labour.
Stifling a pleased grin (and wondering in all the Wold he should care how practical she was…), he knelt down, ignoring the protest in his still aching, battered side and began to help sweep up the wet oily mess.
Together it took them but a few minutes to complete.
"Would you like me to escort you to your home?" he asked politelly, when they had stood up again. "Surely you need to change your kirtle too?" Was it is his imagination or did a shadow yet linger in her unusual sea-grey eyes?
The Princess's tired face shook a little sadly. "No, no thank you, my Lord. I have a change of clothing in my bunk here. I have to get back to my cousin's side."
"Cousin?" Grandmother Morwen had schooled him in both Dol Amroth's and the Steward's family trees but for a moment, distracted by the thought of coaxing a smile from her rather sad, but distracting lips, he could not picture root or branch.
"Faramir. Lord Denethor's youngest son. His mother was my Aunt. We…we nearly lost them both." The dark head drooped a bit and a fresh tear glistened but did not fall.
Nienna, he had heard how the strain of wrestling with the Enemy's dark will had driven the former Steward mad. Eomer glanced across the corridor to the door Lothiriel had left ajar. He knew how brave and valiant a commander was the Steward's second son. Now the poor man would wake to find his entire family gone. Did he even know that he was Steward now? That his father had tried to burn him too? No wonder his cousin was upset by his questioning. Eomer swallowed and offered such words of solace as he could.
"Lord Denethor was a noble man who had two brave and noble sons. Soon, when this war is over, we will have time to honour those who fell."
"Do you think so?" The small proud chin rose up. Her voice, that had been soft and sorrowful, grew stronger, like a wind chime that brightened in the breeze.
"I do," he replied, honestly. For no reason that he could put his finger on, Eomer truly was hopeful for their plight. Aragorn had achieved a miracle. Fortune favoured the warrior who dared and he had dared as no other in a thousand years. Surely the halfling would find favour too?
"Lothiriel!"
A ringing call echoed down the corridor and brought both their attentions up. The young Princess bit her lip again and flushed.
"I must go. That is my aunt and with the dawn there will be yet more chores to do." She bobbed a hasty curtsey. "I thank you again for your help, Eomer-King."
Surprised and no little startled by a form of address he had yet to grow accustomed to, Eomer had only an instant to bow in return before Lothiriel scurried off. He watched, nonplussed (and, yes, intrigued) until the grey skirts turned a farther corner and vanished out of sight.
Ruefully, he squeezed the hem of his tunic, wondering if he could attend the morning's conclave without first stopping back and changing. His undershirt was dry. Aragorn would not raise his eyes, nor Gandalf, but Lord Hurin whom he knew not well just might. And Imrahil.
He watched as a stream of oily wet dripped accusingly down to the floor. That settled it.
Eomer left the Houses and swept through the sixth circle gate. Distracted by an odd and unfamiliar feeling of anxiousness in his chest the young King completely failed to notice one important point.
Dol Amroth's pretty and accomplished young Princess was still clutching his sodden handkerchief.
.
~~~000~~~
.
Like a sea, defeated men in muddied red and gold parted before the Prince, but Imrahil of Dol Amroth did not see them.
As was the case sometimes, the visions chose inconvenient moments to crowd in close. Minas Tirith's temporary Lord and Master paused and swayed a beat no longer than a breath, while his lieutenant, a Swan Knight well used to his Prince's quixotic birthright, held back the curious of the camp perched on the Pelennor's dark-churned mud.
Imrahil's eyes were open but they did not see the blue-grey smoke from cooking fires nor the dark faces etched with resignation. He did not smell sweat or horse or refuse or even the sweet, heady scent of a lone, much-traveled apricot that had precipitated the event. His sight was filled with flashing hooves and blood-slicked swords; with black shadows of death that swooped and fell about a figure gleaming white upon a hill.
And a mountain spewing fire all around.
"Tears. I see tears of stone," he whispered, "They fall like rain upon the riven earth."
"My Lord?" the young lieutenant looked up, puzzled, but the Prince did not reply.
Imrahil shivered and shook his dark head, ran a shaky hand across his face and blinked up into the mid-day sun. ""Sterek, I apologize. Do not mind me. The moment has quickly passed."
It had: clear grey leaked back into a gaze that had briefly been all black. Imrahil drew in a careful steadying breath and tried to ease the beating of his heart. In a few minutes all that would be left was a subtle pounding in his head and a sense of unreality. It was, as always, difficult to know what part of any dream was true, if indeed any part at all. Time and experience had taught him that if a vision were important it would stay; linger in his mind's eye and underneath his skin until he had to speak. It had been the same in the days before- as the hours had worn on he had been compelled to speak to Denethor of his vision in the citadel- to urge him to release the sortie for by then he knew that he would hold his nephew in his arms, still as death and bleeding in the mire. The pain to have Seen true was cruel. He looking down on his kinsman's face he had rued the Valar's gift.
Oh lad. If only you were twelve again.
Shaken but resolved Imrahil resumed his errand and walked quickly on.
In the end, it proved quite easy to find the one he sought. The Duchess's bright red hair stood out amongst the sea of dark. He found her conversing in the Southron's quick, sibilant tongue with a shorter man bearing the heavy gold collar and cheek tattoos of a Captain. What was being said he could not tell but it was clear the man was much agitated. Repeatedly, the Southron raised supplicating hands in the air and pointed towards the battle field, while Amerith nodded and replied with similarly sharp words. The urgent debate wore on. Imrahil waited patiently under the welcome spring sun until she glanced over and caught his eye, nodding briefly and pointing his way. A final-sounding pronouncement was intoned. She folded both her hands across her breast and inclined her head respectfully, holding the warrior's black gaze for a longer moment. At last he too grunted and bowed in kind.
"I thank you, Imrahil," Amerith sighing heavily as she slipped a linen-clad arm through his. "Your timing is impeccable. That was growing tedious." They turned to walk back toward the city gate. Around them swarthy faces stared curiously and a murmur started up. Sterek and Amerith's own guards gathered more closely round. It occurred to Imrahl that his own blue and silver livery was likely memorable from the day before.
"Willen said I could find you here. That was?"
"The highest ranking of their Captains. A man named Hegog. Your arrival allowed me to make an apt analogy."
"Indeed? I am intrigued. You clearly understand the nuance of the language. I am afraid my vocabulary is composed entirely of sailing terms."
The lady grinned coquettishly and an auburn eyebrow raised. "'Prepare to be boarded' would not work both on land and on deck?"
He coughed weakly, hastily glancing around and feeling a sudden flush run up to his cheeks. None of those nearby seemed to have caught wind of what Amerith had said. "I did visit Umbar in my youth. Unofficially, of course."
"Of course," was the bland and innocent reply.
He held Amerith's hand tightly, steadying her as she lifted her skirts to step across a deep furrow in the turf. It was the exact depth and width to have been made by a Nazgul's claw. She tightened her fingers in appreciation.
"Haradi has many dialects but all speak the language of the traders. I am here because we have a serious problem of provision. The City must find food for three thousand more hungry souls, prisoners and men, and a dead Mumak is a tempting source. We nearly had an insurrection this morn when the Guard began to butcher one and pass the meat around. I was able to help them understand that it was as if we asked a Rohir to eat his mount."
Imrahil's brows shot up at that. "Having spoken at some length with Marshal Elfhelm this morn I rather suspect they might be so practical. And how did I help?"
"I pointed out that swan is a delicacy served to the Emperor himself and it is the emblem of your house."
Imrahil threw back his head and laughed. Oh the lady was shameless in what information she would use. "Did you also mention that it was my father's favourite dish?"
"No. How of unusual of me to forget that fact." A pair of lips twitched mischievously. "Nevermind. Hegog has agreed to let the carcasses be butchered so long as they are served at other people's tables. I am told it makes a rather tasty stew."
They had nearly reached the great broken City gate. The twisted bands of iron and black Lebrethon had been hastily pulled to one side and now all that guarded Gondor's step was a small forest of pikemen in somewhat battered, black and silver livery. Imrahil paused to salute. The guards snapped to attention before parting and letting them both through.
When they had reached the start of Lampwright's street Amerith paused and halted him with a hand upon his arm. "You have not come down here just to inquire about a menu…" She spread her hands and regarded him with curiosity. They both knew he did little on a whim.
How could he explain? How to admit that the supposedly valiant Prince of the Swan Knights had come to the Southron camp to find courage for what he had to do.
He turned and took both her small white hands in his. " My Lady…Amerith…. I… I find myself in need of reinforcements."
"Reinforcements? Is there another battle of which I am unaware?"
"No, " he admitted. "Although if the city runs short of ale before we leave things could get ugly in the fourth."
Green eyes danced a little at his evident discomfiture. "You are stalling, my Lord."
He was. Imrahil allowed himself a small and wry half-smile before steeling himself again. Ulmo's ulumur this was not going to become an easier tack for waiting any longer on the reach.
He sighed and looked down to hold her gaze more steadily. "My nephew must be told of his father's death."
A wash of sadness ran quickly down to erase the teasing sparkle. "And it will not do to hide it from him for very long."
"Just so."
Imrahil cleared his throat awkwardly. It was a little indelicate to speak of an unofficial liaison and they had come to the embarrassing part. "Forgive me for my forwardness Duchess but I am assuming that you might bring him comfort at this dark time."
Beringed fingers squeezed gently on his arm. "Perhaps. As much as any true and caring friend."
"Friend?" he repeated, surprised that that was word that she should choose. Was Amerith just being her famously circumspect self or was there an essential point that he had missed? He had admittedly not kept up with such nonessential news in years.
"Are you not especially… close? Not that I listen to court gossip you understand but Denethor has accepted it for years. He told me so." The unhelpful, telltale flush crept up again. "I thought the whole city was under the impression that you are lovers?"
Amerith bit her lip. He could not decide if were from amusement or chagrin. "Be easy, Imrahil. We are great friends, Others once made assumptions from our actions and of course human nature being what it was the assumption was that we were lovers."
"But everyone assumed, nay expected that once the war was over you two might wed."
Amerith took in his flabbergasted look and smiled wistfully. "As much as I hope and pray that they are right about this war, that tidbit is sadly out of date and I am far far too used to my freedom for marriage now. As for Faramir, not all are as wise as you my Prince. You, and your father before you, have always let your family follow their own hearts. Denethor ever tried to force both his sons to be something they were not. The façade has served its purpose. It stopped Denethor from imposing a match upon your nephew with someone he did not love.
Imrahil frowned thoughtfully. Boromir had stood up to his father on that issue and their relationship had never been the same. What would Faramir, who had always craved his father's good regard, have done presented with such a match? Probably taken it, fulfilling a sense of duty to Steward and father both. He looked upon Amerith with new found admiration. Her solution had been ingenious, if a little risky as far as reputation.
"My Lady you are full of surprises today."
"Flattery will get you everywhere." He smiled wanly and they both looked up towards a green smudge on the rampart of the sixth. The greensward of the House of Healing's gardens was the largest patch of nature in the city and a welcome respite from its unrelenting stone. Somehow he doubted it would be sufficient balm for the dreadful news they had to bear.
Amerith sighed and brought her hand up to his cheek. "Este grant that he finds healing in this space and has a long life ahead to find a woman with whom he can forge a lasting bond."
"The Valar make it so. Will you join me now in the Houses to break the news? This will be a heavy blow." He proffered his arm more formally and she clasped his wrist lightly, a perfect correct one inch above his braided cuff.
Together they walked in apprehensive silence through a city preparing once again for war.
.
~~~000~~~
.
Faramir lay in the muted quiet of the night and waited for disintegration to finally come.
He was patient. Of course it was impossible for him to now stay sane and whole. This was too much. There was no way to weather this new shock. It was quite simply beyond enduring. His mother. His brother. And now his father too. All of them, all of his family in what felt a single blow, for as surely as he had just lost his father now, he had lost his brother and his mother once again. Boromir and Denethor had always been the keepers of his memories- for the boy who had been too little to remember much of a mother beyond soft hands in the firelight and soft words when the night crowded all too close.
Silent tears slipped down while energy drained away. He did not dissolve although of course it would surely come. Perhaps he was simply yet too weary for the process to take root…
"Your father is now gone."
Imrahil's words had been spoken with an ocean of regret.
Faramir had sat, enwrapped by the arms of both his Uncle and Amerith, a sense of heavy compassion like a mantle across his thoughts. Her skirts rustled quietly while Imrahil's rough callused thumb stroked across his hand. His heart, stone-like and then shattered like a crystal glass, had known the ill news that would finally come.
Sometimes it happened that way…the premonitions. They lay and waited until just before the act to spring. This felt as such and yet at once it was so familiar, as if known for long and long. As if he had dreamed some part of it in the night terrors of the past and not recognized for true all it forebode…
Amerith's fingers stroked lightly along his nape, put into touch the depth of her leaden grief. Her voice was soft and yet held so much regret he thought that it must surely burst open like a hornbeam seed.
"He fell while the battle raged"
"How?"
Green eyes and seastorm grey met once.
"How?"
"Fire…." Imrahil's cultured baritone broke a little on that word. His mind reeled and he fought back images of horror, imagined catapults and siege engines throwing flaming pitch onto the battlements, arrows drenched in oil finding targets higher up. Denethor must have left his chair at last, directed personally the defense from the city walls..
"Faramir…? He loved you. I know it was not easy for him to show but his grief at that thought of losing you was great."
"They are all gone…"
He said this absently as if were too large to comprehend, to speak out loud, and worried looks were exchanged above his head.
"I should have gone in my brother's stead…"
Amerith hugged him close and dropped the barest of lips onto his brow. "No, my love, it is not given to each of us to direct of all that comes to be. You cannot know the music of the One. Do not go there."
"I want to go to him…"
A faint shudder wracked his shoulders as both sets of arms held tighter still.
"It is not possible Faramir, not until you are full healed and released from the Houses' care."
He had heard his Uncle's words, but the sense of unreality was great, as if he were watching the scene from somewhere outside his body, from some great height and they all were merely actors on a stage.
At any moment he had imagined he would wake up and find it all a dream, a horrible, terrible mistake. Having longed to howl for his brother there was now nothing left but an aching empty shell and his mind in desperate defense pulled away so that pain would not overmatch the body on the bed. He had been numb. Eyes like coals burning with words too heavy to be framed.
Alarmed by his quiet, seeming incomprehension, they did not let him be alone.
Amerith had been the first, touching gently to his hand or face each time he woke. Speaking softly of need or want or simply silently holding on.
Mithrandir was next. His uncle had come back, greatly worried, and he dimly heard them speak, even as a gnarled but soothing hand gripped his.
The words were faint as through a dark and murky tunnel.
"He is strong Imrahil. He has always had to be but there comes a time when strength alone will not do. Even the mightiest warrior can be too tired to take a step. Time, give him time. He will accept."
Lothiriel and Erchirion came next, then Ivriniel and Elphir. Around all the watches of the night they sat, weeping or dry-eyed, heart-sick but above all holding on to him. As if with touch they could anchor him to the world he had to accept.
The dam burst when Amrothos had the watch.
He had slept again, mind descending to a depth where fear and reality rode desperately bareback in harried flight. The creature, the terror that hunted, eager and merciless, through his exhausted mind was steadily ripping him limb from limb.
The screams as he awoke (faithless. ungrateful one) were blood-curdling.
His young cousin, terrified by the storm, sent for both his father and his king.
Sleep became something sought only under the blanket of calming drugs. Even then the nightmares did not entirely abate and he woke repeatedly through that long night, shaking hands reaching desperately for the contact that was always there. Touch became the lodestone of the world. He needed to not fly away, to not let his mind float flee. There were no bonds left in Middle-Earth to hold him. The love of each of them have to do.
It did not make it right. But for a time it kept him whole…
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Sorry I fibbed about Eowyn/Fara appearing together this chapter..but there was a smidgen of almost romance :) Thank you so so much everyone for your comments. Cheers and hugs and thanks go to Annafan and Artura for casting discerning eyes on this and to Wynja2007's NaNoWriMo cabin for being a comfy space in which to write. Updating should be faster now again.. I actually have much of the forthcoming chapters done...
Next up... Aragorn and Faramir have a heart to heart and Eomer-King says goodbye to his sister at the gates. Gondor's new steward finds there is something familiar about the Shieldmaiden with the golden hair