Chapter ten: Masks
From The Many Faces of a King, by Túrin the Bard, F.A. 738
When a minstrel sings, he plays to his audience. When a bard stands in a hall and surveys the crowd before him, he judges whether they are hungry for happy songs, or whether they wish him to sing tales of sorrow or war. A skilled singer can manipulate the emotions of his listeners, but he is no wizard. Before he opens his mouth to sing, he reads the faces around him, and considers how they will respond to his voice.
In a way, our lords and kings are performers now. They live their lives in the public eye. Like a singer, they cannot ignore the mood of their subjects. For the people have found their voice now, and are not afraid to use it.
When Elendil came from the sea and founded his two great kingdoms, he declared that he was king. He did not ask. He and his sons took it for granted that the people would accept their rule, and dazzled by their majesty, the people did.
When Elessar came to Minas Tirith, he would not enter it uninvited. His blood had given him a claim to the throne, and his deeds had given him the right to assert this claim, but until the people had acclaimed him, he wore no crown.
It was a sign of things to come. When Elessar rode against the eastern clans, the whole affair was undertaken with an eye to what we would now call public opinion. Evidence shows that his first Steward, Faramir, considered closing the gates, but refrained from doing so not because of military considerations, but out of concern for how the people would react. The enemy agents in the city acted throughout with a view to stirring up the people. They were players acting for an audience; singers who considered the impact of their every word. They could not directly influence the king, but they could influence the mood of the people, and the king, like a bard on stage, would have to plan his actions accordingly.
The world changed when Sauron fell. In many ways, Elessar was like the kings of old returned again, but the kingdom was not the kingdom of old, and he did not have the arrogance of those born in Westernesse before its fall. He had lived amongst the people, under many names and many guises, and he understood them well. He was their king, but in many ways he was a player, too, a bard performing to the crowd. He had a strong will and he was gifted at inspiring people, making them feel just what he needed them to feel, but like any bard, he knew that there were limits that he should not pass.
He had to listen to his audience. He had to heed them. All bards do, and in this Fourth Age of the world, it is even so with kings.
"You're late," said the man who went by the name of Seregon.
"You question me?" said the other man. Seregon was not allowed to know his name.
I have earned that right, Seregon could have protested. For twelve years, he had worked this mission alone. Twelve years among enemies. Twelve years away from home. His father was dead and his brothers were dead, killed by the king of Gondor. It was unlikely that he would ever have a wife now, even if he did win his way back home. All he had was his memories of a patch of land beside the sea, bleak yet beautiful, and he had not seen it for over fourteen years.
Yes, he had earned that right, but all he said was, "It is hard for me to slip away unnoticed. They have been particularly watchful in recent days, and eager for blood, eager to jump on any hint of disloyalty."
"They suspect you?" said the other man. Despite the heat, he wore a hood, and his face was barely visible in the deep shadows of the alley. Outside, the city was a place of fierce white light: sunlight on stone. When you walked from that into even a small patch of shade, you were almost blind. But he had shown the token, and had given the right watchwords, ones Seregon had been taught so long ago.
"No." Seregon shook his head. "But I've been waiting for a long time, and that draws attention, if people see it. We should meet inside next time."
A pair of voices drew nearer, came almost close enough for Seregon to hear the words, and then faded away. The other man cocked his head, listening. As he did so, Seregon saw that he had been wounded on the cheek, from the corner of the mouth almost to the eye. Seregon had been standing for a long time in the shadowed alley, and his eyes were adapted to it. He could see the man far more clearly, he reminded himself, than the other man could see him.
"Did you do it?" he asked, when the voices had faded to nothing again. "Did you kill the captain of the Great Gate?" The tall man turned on him angrily, breath hissing in his throat, and this time Seregon did say it. "I have earned the right to ask questions."
The other man was silent for a while. "Yes," he said at last. Now that Seregon had seen the wound, he could hear the effect of it in the man's speech and breathing. Any movement of his face must be hurting him badly.
"Why?" asked the man who was not called Seregon, but had gone by that name for so long that it had become the name that childhood friends called him in dreams. "The king and his army have left. That was the goal, was it not? To create such a clamour in the streets that they would race over-hastily to war? But the army's gone now, as is far out of our reach. Why…?"
He trailed off. Beneath the hood, the other man's eyes were keen. This was the sort of man that Seregon had been raised to call master. This man could not have spent twelve years bowing and saluting and obeying the orders of low-born fools, as Seregon had done. That was why he had been chosen for this: because he was nobody.
"We are not the only ones," the other man said, "and the army is not out of our reach. And Minas Tirith is still of the utmost importance. Kill the captain of the Great Gate, and the fools will scream as if the very walls of their city are under threat. They will close all the gates, but that will not hinder us, thanks to you." It was grudgingly said, no true thanks for twelve years of his life. "By closing the gates, they will fan the flames of fear. As they did when they were under siege, they will call in their levies from their southern fiefdoms, and that," he said, expressionless within his hood, "can only be good."
"And when do you do it?" Seregon asked. A bell started ringing, and it meant that it was past time for him to be leaving. He lowered his voice almost to a whisper. "When do you kill the steward?"
"When you have provided us with the means," said the hooded man, his voice made expressionless by the wound on his cheek.
Crops grew around the garrison north of the Morannon. When Aragorn had ordered it built, he had also ordered trains of wagons to take topsoil from Ithilien, and the seeds of shallow-rooted plants that could cling to life even in barren places. The soldiers of the forts on the fringes of Mordor were by necessity farmers and gardeners as well as doughty warriors. With their swords they could kill, but with their spades they were slowly clawing life from the blasted lands around them. In common with all the outposts near the old borders of Mordor, their dispatches were as much about farming as they were about defence.
It was a slow process, and more seeds failed than flourished. At times, the east wind rose and snatched the fertile soil away, and even when they dug it well, mixing it with the barren earth below the ground, it was not enough to nourish plants when their roots delved deep. But already, Aragorn saw, a few wild flowers were growing, seeding themselves without the hard labour of man.
Only fourteen years, he mused. Only fourteen years since the fall of Sauron. It was such a little time compared with the long centuries of Sauron's ascendancy, but already the signs of his mastery were fading. Such a little time…
And then he imagined this nascent farmland crushed by the chariots of the clans from the east. He imagined the crops torn up and the wild flowers dying, and the land becoming bleak and desolate once more, made so not by Sauron but by men. It must not happen, he vowed. "It will not," he said, as he rode past a young honeysuckle that grew across a jagged slab of dark stone.
The captain of the garrison rode out to meet him and gave a brisk salute. They were independent men, these soldiers who served on the frontier. Few possessed much in the way of courtly manners, but their bravery and loyalty were beyond reproach. "The scouts have started to report back in, my lord," he said. "There is news."
"Then we will hear it," Aragorn said, turning towards Éomer and Gimli to include them in the report, even though the captain had spoken only to Aragorn.
The bulk of the army, on foot, had halted several miles behind them. Aragorn and Éomer had ridden ahead, escorted by a body of horsemen from both Rohan and Gondor, to hear reports and take counsel. After that, depending on what news had been brought and what decisions were taken, the army would march a few more leagues before halting for the night, but Aragorn had no intention of bringing it through the fragile farmland around the garrison. Enemy armies were not the only ones who could bring desolation in their wake. All war brought ruin to those touched by it.
"We will hear it," he said, as they followed the captain in through the gate, "and decide."
"Is it time?" asked Éomer quietly.
"It depends on what the scouts say," Aragorn said, but he had his own scouts, and he thought he knew what was coming. "But yes," he said, "I think it is."
Pippin had spent the morning playing dwarves and dragons with the future king of Gondor. If the flowers had ended up more than a little trampled, it was not the fault of the future Thain of the Shire, oh no. "Sometimes," Eldarion had said earnestly, "things get a bit broken when dragons are involved." It was Elboron (dwarf) who had made the stone vase wobble perilously on its plinth, and Pippin ("hobbit, of course") who had saved it from crashing to its doom. After that, they had ceded the field to the dragon, and retired for toast and lemon curd with the dragon's mother, and soft white rolls filled with succulent ham, roasted with cloves and honey, and leftover bacon eaten cold with the fingers.
But even dwarves and dragons needed schooling, and after lunch, the children had gone reluctantly to their lessons, and Arwen had been called away to attend to the duties of a queen. Merry and Éowyn had gone off somewhere to talk about the lore of Rohan, another of Merry's growing passions, but Pippin had shaken his head when invited to follow them. It was another beautiful day, and he wanted to be outside in it.
He wandered through the Citadel at first, but he and Merry had done quite enough of that in the last few days, thank you very much. The garden was as beautiful as ever, but then he saw a gardener hard at work in it, and he wanted to storm up to him and berate him for daring to stop Arwen from gardening whenever she wanted to. It just wasn't fair! Aragorn was king, but had to contrive and negotiate to be allowed to go out for a walk, just himself and his friends, without guards and panoply. Arwen was queen, but wasn't allowed to kneel in the mud and get her hands dirty. And when Pippin was Thain…
He let out a breath. 'When you're Thain.' They were already saying it. They had been saying it for years. When he went out with his friends and drank a little too much. When he got a little carried away and something got trampled as a result. He was over forty now, a husband and a father, and he had fought in the War of the Ring, and stared into the very face of doom. He was not the mischievous young hobbit he once had been, but he didn't feel staid and grown-up, either.
They wanted him to be. They always had an opinion. They. The busy-bodies. The consensus. The received opinion. The same 'they' who wanted to stop Aragorn from sneaking around in a battered old cloak. The same 'they' who thought that Pippin should settle down and turn into a pillar of the community. Not that the mutterings of the busy-bodies had stopped old Bilbo one whit, of course, but Bilbo had held no title. Bilbo had been free to defy them all and wander off whereever he wished. Bilbo had…
"No," Pippin said out loud. "Not now." It was a beautiful day. He would think about this tomorrow, or maybe the day after that. He would leave the gardener unberated for now. Not that he seemed to be a very good gardener, he thought darkly, as he watched the man engage in some half-hearted snipping of things. Sam would work three times as hard as that, Pippin thought, although he'd need a ladder for those tall shrubs.
Away from the garden, then, and the fountain courtyard was out, because that was surrounded by those impassive guards, and you never knew what they were really thinking, so you worried that they might be thinking about you. There goes that Peregrin Took. He's a Guard of the Citadel, like us, but he never seems to do any guarding, just goes swanning around having fun, while we're stuck here in this sweltering hot uniform, doing all the work.
Past the guards, then, and through the tunnel, and out through the gate into the sixth level. They let him pass, opening the gate without asking him any questions. He nodded graciously in acknowledgement. At least, he hoped it was gracious. It was only when he was well into the sixth level that anyone tried to stop him at all, and that was an officer who happened to be emerging from a guard house. He greeted Pippin with a salute, and offered him an escort for his own protection.
"For there have been too many assaults of late," he said, "and it is unwise for a friend of the king's to walk alone and unprotected. I can give you two men. They will watch you discreetly, but you will be safer with them there." His manner was that of a humble servant offering a suggestion, but his voice was that of a captain giving a command.
It was 'they' again. Once again, they were getting involved. "Thank you," Pippin said, careful to keep his voice polite, "but no thank you." Gandalf had let him wander the streets alone even on the eve of the Siege, after all, and he and Bergil had explored the lower levels unwatched by anyone. But Pippin was not entirely foolish, no matter how importunate they were being. "I'm not going far," he explained. "Just a little wander around the sixth level."
Of course, he remembered a few minutes later, a guardsman had been killed on the sixth level not so many days ago. That had been at night, of course, but… well, he was a guardsman, and doubtless good at fighting and things like that, but he'd still been murdered.
He would tread carefully, then, and make sure he didn't go into any out of the way places. He found himself wandering past the stables, and stopped to poke his head around the door. There weren't many horses inside, but he paused to say hello to his pony, who seemed to be in the middle of a fascinating chat with Merry's pony in the stall next door. Pippin lingered a while, but when he realised that he was just going to be ignored by the ungrateful animal, he carried on.
The murder had taken place in a garden, hadn't it? He passed an ornate gateway that led to an enticing patch of green; stopped, turned, and went through it. He only went a few steps inside, though, careful to stay within sight of the street outside. He inhaled deeply, absorbing the scent of the flowers, and looked up at the birds on the branches above.
"Should you really be alone here?" said a voice.
Pippin whirled round, and saw a guardsman behind him, standing in the gateway that led back to the street. The sword at his belt was obvious, gleaming in the sun.
"Have you been sent to guard me?" Pippin asked. "I really wish-"
"No, no!" The guardsman raised his hands as if in surrender, and laughed. "I'm off duty." He walked forward, sticking out a hand for Pippin to shake. "My name's Seregon, under-captain of the sixth gate, and you're Peregrin Took, friend of the king. I'm very pleased to meet you."
"There must be some reason for it," Merry said, his pen poised above the ink well. "Again and again, we're finding words that are similar in your language and in ours." He dipped the pen in the ink, shaking off the excess drops. "But the things we use the language for are so different, of course."
"Not as different as all that," Éowyn said, as she stood in the window, looking out.
"True," Merry conceded. "No matter where they live, people have the same concerns. I see that now. We used to think of the Big People as completely different from us, but no matter where they live, and no matter how big they are, people need words for family and friends, for food and sleep, for houses and furniture and the weather and the seasons of the year. They need laughter, and words for the things that make them laugh." He gave a wry smile. "We used to think we were so special. We Brandybucks travelled more than most, but even we had little interest in anything outside our borders. The Big Folk out there… We didn't think we had anything in common with them."
"It is easy to feel that way," Éowyn said quietly, "when you see nothing but your own home."
She thought of her own childhood, and the bitter years in Meduseld when Gríma had ruled in all but name. Throughout it all, she had thought that she was the only one: the only girl who wished to learn the sword alongside her brother; the only person trapped inside, caring for a loved one; the only woman who stood in a window and longed for something more.
How many women stood in their own windows now, gazing out at the distant east, where their brothers rode to war? In Meduseld, was Lothíriel doing the same? Did the enemy clans leave their women behind, to gaze across the plains and wonder where their men had gone? In a thousand halls and houses and hovels, the same story was told. The languages were different, but the things they spoke about were the same.
"But you are different," Merry said. "Not as different as we used to think, but still different. You have so many different words for horses." He gestured at his list, just one of the many pages he had compiled. "Parts of their body. Their different gaits. Things that it's never occurred to us to need words for. And war," he said. "So many words for weapons and war."
"Yes," Éowyn agreed. "War has always been important to us. We don't seek it out unnecessarily, but…"
"But you like its trappings," Merry said. "If a travelling market set up a few miles down the road, you would want to ride out to it with your spears and your armour and your horsehair helmets, twenty strong and singing. Whereas we, of course," he said, smiling, "would make a party of it. We'd pile a wagon high with baskets, all the better to stuff them full of food. We have many more words for meals than you have."
"I expect you do," Éowyn said, returning his smile.
"So that's what I mean," Merry said. "The same, but different." He laid down his pen with a sigh, then picked it up again. "I don't know if I'll ever get this tangle sorted out. Things were easier when we stayed in the Shire and never thought to wonder about what lay outside."
"Better?" Éowyn asked, already knowing what answer he would give.
"Oh no," Merry said, as she had known he would. He smiled again, and started to write.
Éowyn turned her attention to the world outside the window. A servant walked swiftly past, carrying a wooden box. Behind a low wall, a corner of the queen's garden was visible, all white blossom and pale green leaves. A wisp of cloud passed across the sun, doing little to lessen the brightness of the day.
Yes, she thought, in a thousand halls and houses and hovels, the same story was told. But she was the wife of the Steward of Gondor, and a daughter of queens. Her husband consulted her on matters that could affect the whole kingdom. Custom wanted to banish her to Emyn Arnen, but she had the luxury of being able to defy custom, if she was prepared to accept the consequences. She was in Gondor by choice, and it was a choice she did not regret.
The scratching of Merry's pen grew slower, and soon stopped altogether. "All your words for war…" Merry said. "Should I be wearing a sword? I brought one, you know," he said before Éowyn could muster a reply. "It's never seemed quite right to wear one at home, although we did for a little while when we first got home, just Pippin and me. As we rode south, I thought I might start wearing it again when we got to places where wearing a sword is normal in day-to-day living, but it's never seemed quite right."
Éowyn had not worn a sword since the Pelennor. Her sword had shattered after she had struck the Witch King, of course, but she had taken another from the treasuries of Meduseld on the eve of her uncle's funeral, and had kept it in his memory ever since. It lived in a chest in Emyn Arnen, and at times she would draw it out and clean at it, turning it this way and that in the sunlight. When she came to Minas Tirith, the sword came with her, secret, untouched, hidden.
"We went down into the city a few days ago," Merry said, "and even then we didn't wear them, because we were trying not to draw any attention to ourselves. But then Captain Daerion got attacked, and we tried to chase down his attacker, but what could we have done if we'd caught him? We just had eating knives. Should I wear a sword? I've been looking around. The guards wear them, of course, and the lords, but most people don't."
And no women, of course.
"I think you should do whatever makes you feel comfortable," Éowyn said. "Nobody will look askance at you if you wear one, but neither will they look askance at you if you go out without one. Many people wear swords here, even in peace time. If you wear one, it will occasion no talk." A bell sounded outside, marking the changing of a watch. "But in these uncertain times of ours," she said, "I think…" She turned her back to the window, facing him with the glass behind her. "It is better to be ready. It is better to be safe."
She had her sword with her still, safe in the chest at the foot of her bed.
The small room was too hot, with no windows to let in the breeze. Éomer wiped his brow with the back of his hand, and took a long draught of the ice cold water, brought from the cellar deep below ground.
"Are you sure?" he asked. He had asked it before, of course. "Are you sure this is the only way?"
"I believe so," said Aragorn.
Éomer had no idea what time it was, only that had been closeted in here for hours while scouts brought in their reports. A large map of the Brown Lands lay on the table, marked with gaming counters to show the position of the armies. Here was the where the enemy army had last been sighted, and here was where Aragorn thought it would have reached since then. Forces of enemy horsemen were ranging here and here. Here and here were the fallen outposts, and here and here were where enemy scouts had been captured and kept from seeing the scale of the army that faced them.
"The refugees are still here," Aragorn said. "I hope to stop the clans before they come this far, but it will be safer for them to leave. We will spare an escort to take them south into Ithilien." He placed his hand on the map, covering the whole of northern Ithilien with the spread of his fingers.
"And where shall the army go?" Éomer asked. He knew what he wanted to do, and that was to take his thirty men and hunt down the enemies who had sacked the outposts. He had glimpsed the refugees on the way in, and seen how bleak and wan they were, their eyes following Aragorn as they begged him silently to avenge them.
Had Éomer not been lord of his people, he might have done it. When he had been just a marshal of the Riddermark, he could take his éored and ride out against any foes that presented themselves. As a king, bound by the oath of Eorl, he had to consider the wider needs of Gondor's war.
Even so, he might have argued the need for such an act, had he just been a friend and ally of Gondor's king. His men were his own. He had the right to use them how he wished, and he had the right to argue with Aragorn about tactics. Let Aragorn lead the army, while Éomer and his men did what they had been trained to do from childhood: bring death to enemies upon the open plain.
But he could not. He could not. The time had come, and everything was about to change.
"Avoid the outposts," Aragorn said, "because they will expect us to go there. Although we have captured several of their scouts and spies, it is too much to hope that they are entirely ignorant of our approach. Even if they are, they will expect a response to their aggression. They know we are coming."
"So we will have to go where they least expect us to go," Gimli said, "and make sure that anyone who sees us is not allowed to escape and tell the tale."
"If possible," Aragorn said. His hands were on the empty space now, the barren lands on the map where no counters sat.
The lands through which he was planning to travel alone, or as near to alone as made no difference.
"It will not be easy," Aragorn said. "The land is too bleak to entirely hide an army. You will have to assume that they know more of your doings than you would wish them to."
"Including the fact that you have left us and headed off alone." There was a harshness to Gimli's voice. He wished that he was going too, of course.
"It would be good if that remained hidden for as long as possible," Aragorn said. "As well as spies watching us, I fear we may have spies amongst us. They would not let us ride without one, surely."
"Will the lords of Gondor accept orders from Éomer?" Gimli wondered.
"He is a king," Aragorn said, and there was no doubt in his voice at all as he sat there at the map table, looking every inch the king himself. "He is a king and a commander of renown."
They were silent again. Éomer wiped the sweat from his brow, and watched the beads of liquid that dripped across his glass. He had commanded forces several thousand strong, but they were riders from the Riddermark, and he was their lord by right. Tactics he knew, and he could make a decision in the midst of battle, and do so quickly, without the hesitation that could prove fatal. But I do not know… he thought, then stopped himself, curling his hand into a fist.
He would do it, of course, and he would do it well.
He had to.
Pippin and his new friend had spent a pleasant hour or two in the sunshine. An under-captain of the watch, it turned out, had Contacts, and Contacts meant that you could get very fine beer for a reduced price, and drink it on a rooftop garden overlooking a maze of narrow streets somewhere near the Houses of Healing. "We used to come here a lot when we were off duty," Seregon said, looking sadly into his half-drunk beer. "Not so much in recent days, of course."
"Of course," said Pippin, thinking that he was talking about the war. Then he remembered that the murdered guard had been assigned to the sixth gate, which was where Seregon himself was assigned. "Were you…?" He almost didn't ask it, but you couldn't always be tactful when you needed answers. Merry and Pippin had headed into the city to look for clues that would help uncover the enemy agents. He couldn't forget the city's need, even as he sat in the sun drinking beer. "Were you friends with him?" he asked. "With the man who died?"
"I was," Seregon said gruffly. "It's hit us all hard. There's nothing as close as the bond between men who serve together."
"I'm sorry." A bird landed near Pippin's feet, pecking at stray fallen crumbs. Then one of the other drinkers gave a loud bark of laughter, and the bird flew away, startled. "Did you-?"
"I was off duty when it happened," Seregon said harshly. "Went to bed as normal. Got up, had breakfast, and found out that he was dead. I don't want to talk about it."
"No," Pippin said. "Of course." He tried to take another mouthful, but his beer appeared to have disappeared while they were talking. Best not have another, he thought. He didn't want to say anything stupid.
"So how are they taking it in the Citadel?" Seregon asked. "The attack on the king, and now everything else?"
Best think before answering that, too. Pippin mimed taking another drink, and leaned sideways to look down from the rooftop vantage point. A small patch of green was visible between two tall buildings. Someone was walking there, moving slowly. Was that the garden of the Houses of Healing?
Seregon cleared his throat. Pippin turned his attention back to him. "As well as can be expected," he said. He reached out, plucking a tendril of the plant that had coiled itself around the railings. "What's this? We don't have it at home."
"Neither do we." Seregon's voice was harsh again. Of course, Pippin reminded himself, he'd recently suffered a loss, and a fool of a Took had tried to make him talk about it. It was almost enough to make him answer Seregon's question more fully, but he resisted the urge. Seregon was an under-captain of the city watch and therefore an honest and loyal man, but Pippin was a friend of the king and queen, and he knew full well that Aragorn and Faramir had secrets: secrets that a humble guardsman was not to know. This was altogether too public a place. The people at the other tables seemed entirely absorbed in their own conversations, but who could tell what they were really listening to?
"Well…" said Pippin, as he decided that he would talk to Seregon about the Shire and herblore and his ancestors, and harmless things like that. "It's a bit like bindweed, but not quite. That's a nasty little name for what is rather a pretty plant. I remember…"
"Shall we go?" Seregon said, pushing his chair back. "I need to report back for duty soon, but if you like flowers, we can head back to the guardhouse by a sneaky little back way. It's a bit longer, but it goes through a hidden rock garden. You'll like that."
"Short cuts make long delays," Pippin said, laughing. "I wonder what long cuts make?" He thought he might refuse the offer, though, pleading a suddenly-remembered appointment in the Citadel. He didn't want to have to pretend to be fascinated by flowers for hours on end. Besides… Well, you couldn't be too careful; that was the lesson that the last two weeks had taught.
They headed down the narrow outdoor stairs, Pippin going first, and Seregon close behind him, closer than Pippin might have liked. Men were such big, clumsy things. What if he fell?
But it was Pippin who almost caused the accident, stopping abruptly when they reached the balcony below. Seregon bumped into him from behind, steadying himself only by grabbing Pippin's shoulder hard enough to hurt.
"Look!" Pippin whispered, gesturing with his chin to the street below. "I said I didn't need an escort, but I can see two guards over there. Oh, they've made themselves nice and discreet, but is it a coincidence that they happen to be loitering just across the way from the place I went to have a drink? It's too much!"
"Yes," Seregon agreed. "Yes, it is."
Perhaps in response to their near accident, Seregon kept his distance on the next flight of stairs, but once they were back on ground level, he came close again, touching Pippin on the arm. "If you find yourself getting bored up there in the Citadel and in need of a drinking companion," he said, "you know where to find me."
"Yes," Pippin said. "I do. And I owe you a drink. I won't forget that. We Tooks pay our debts. Most of the time, anyway," honesty made him add, as he remembered the various little knickknacks he had borrowed over the years and forgotten to return.
"Yes," said Seregon. "So do we."
Beyond the Dead Marshes, the light was fading. The army was three leagues away, and if things went well, Aragorn would not see it again for many days.
And if things went badly…? He had considered that, of course.
"Legolas isn't back yet," Gimli pointed out, speaking quietly, because the window was open a crack, bringing with it the smell of honeysuckle. "You should wait until…"
"No." Aragorn shook his head. "Legolas will come. Tonight, after dark, he said."
Legolas's arrival was the final piece of the puzzle. He was the last scout to report in. From his tidings, Aragorn would make his final decision on which route to take. He doubted it would change much. He had thought about this for days, and could never escape the conclusion that this was their only chance of ending this affair the way it had to end.
"I wish…!" Gimli cried. He bit it back, lowering his voice to a whisper. "It should be the three of us. The Three Hunters; they still call us that in the songs of Rohan."
"It won't even be the two of us," Aragorn said. Legolas had his own part to play, but he and Aragorn would not be travelling together. Legolas and his companions would be close enough that if the worst happened, they would hear of it, but that was all.
Only one companion would travel with Aragorn, and it could not be Gimli. Gimli was tireless, and a doughty warrior, but stealth was what was needed now.
"What will they say," Gimli asked, "when it slips out that we let you go?"
"Let me?" Aragorn said. "Who is the king here?" Then he relaxed with a smile, owning that Gimli had the right of it. In some ways, a king was less free than the lowliest man-at-arms. He was free to make his own decisions, true, but for every decision, he had to consider how it would affect not just himself and his family, which any man had to consider, but the kingdom as a whole. Everywhere he went, there were people with opinions on what he should do and where he should go and how he should behave.
"It is a shocking risk: that's what they will say." Gimli stood his ground. "You are heading off alone into enemy territory. If glimpsed, you could be shot as a spy. If captured, you could be killed. It is a foolish act. How can you risk the whole of Gondor so?" Gimli's voice was rising again. "That is what they will say," he finished, quiet but defiant. "I know these people, and that is what they'll say."
"For nearly seventy years, I went into worse dangers." Aragorn placed a hand on Gimli's arm. His anger came from fear for his friends, Aragorn knew, and bitterness at being left behind. "I could have hidden in Rivendell and done nothing at all, concerned only with protecting the bloodline of Isildur. I did not. I served in Rohan and Gondor and beyond. I travelled into Mordor itself. I hunted Gollum alone. Alone, I was sometimes wounded, occasionally badly so. More than once, I came only a hair's breadth from death."
"But you weren't king then," Gimli protested.
"No," Aragorn agreed, "and had I died then, I would never have become so. Gondor would have remained under the rule of the stewards, or fallen, if that rule had failed. I would not have married. I would have no heir. The kingdoms of the west would have been just a fading memory told by slaves who sobbed beneath the yoke of Sauron. Some of this I knew, or feared, but I still took those risks. I fought and I travelled and I led from the front, because to do otherwise was wrong."
"But…!" Gimli protested. I want to come with you! his eyes said.
"I have undertaken many such ventures as this," Aragorn said gently, "when there was nobody there to question the need. What has changed since those times?" Aragorn smiled. "Sauron has fallen, and Gondor and Arnor are restored. There is an heir to the throne, and a wise queen and a noble Steward who will govern well until he comes of age. I owe it to my people not to risk myself unnecessarily. I accept those strictures for the most part, and let others fight battles that once I would have fought myself. But this…" He shook his head. "This is not unnecessary. This is essential, and it is a thing that I alone can do. You know this, Gimli."
Gimli was silent for a very long time. He closed his eyes. "Yes," he said quietly. "Yes."
"But I have your gift to keep me safe," Aragorn said, "and the cloak of Lothlórien."
"And Legolas," Gimli said gruffly, "watching from afar with those keen eyes of his." He grabbed Aragorn's arm, clasping it in both of his own. "Stay safe. Come back."
"I will," Aragorn promised, and hoped that it was true.
I will.