Chapter thirteen: The Mounds of the Dead

From The Archaeology of Eastern Gondor, by Ladon Forrester, F.A. 1968

For thousands of years, the lands that now form the north-eastern provinces of Gondor were a wasteland. As we travel north through Ithilien, first we have the Dagorlad, the battle plain, and then the Brown Lands. Throughout the Third Age, little grew here. Men crossed it at times, but after the wars of the Wainriders, they have left few remains.

As archaeologists, we concern ourselves with the physical remnants of the human past. Oftentimes, our concern is with the dead, but sometimes even the dead leave no remains that survive the passage of the long centuries. Others have left bones, but we have not found them. Just because we have not discovered a thing, it does not mean that such a thing does not exist. The so-called Brown Lands are vast, and we can only dig where we have reason to believe that we will find something. There will be bones there, as yet undiscovered, and very possibly the remains of camps and even of attempted settlements, lost over time.

Sometimes it is a chance discovery that tells us where to dig. A storm or a landslip reveals something that catches the eye, and when we investigate, we find something that would otherwise have remained lost. Sometimes, however, the written record tells us where to dig.

Thus it is with three mounds that lie fifty miles apart in the west of the region that is the subject of this book. One is a small mound, covered now with white flowers. What was found when we dug there has been left in peace. One is a much larger mound, and excavation has shown that it is built of stones piled around a chariot. The third, far away from the other two, is the smallest yet. In fact, it is no longer any mound at all, but the years have smoothed it down. It was found only as the result of a long and determined search by a colleague of mine, who had read about it in the writings of the time, and wished to track it down.

It is found at the heart of a beautiful patch of woodland, bright with blossom in the spring, and blazing like orange fire every autumn.

To this day, we do not know who lies there.

It was over. Hasad was dead. Hasad was dead, and Kabil was a prisoner. He had tried to die fighting, but in the end… Oh, in the end, he had failed. He had been surrounded by four of them, their spears dripping blood, and he had tried to fight, he had tried to, but he was horseless by then, wounded in the leg. His blade had slipped from his hand. I don't want to die! he had thought. I don't want to die!

It was too late now. Too late now to wish that cowardice had not overwhelmed him just when he had most needed courage. He could have gone down fighting. He could have killed himself. Instead he had been taken. Too many of them had been taken.

He didn't know how many had died. At least six had fallen to the initial arrows, but more had been brought down by the panic of the horses. Even before they had sprung it, their ambush had been ruined. "On," Hasad had murmured, "on!" but only Kabil had been close enough to hear it. They had tried, oh how they had tried, but it was already too late.

The enemy horsemen had been implacable. He hadn't known that they bred men like that in the west! The men of Gondor liked to walk everywhere, they said, and only a few had horses, and they rode them badly. Their horses were pitiful things, not like horses of the clans, bred over many centuries for swiftness in war. The clans favoured mounted archers and swordsmen, who darted in, killed their man, and then galloped away again. Their spearmen rode in chariots, and when their spears were all thrown, they jumped from the chariot and fought with their blades, unstoppable.

Unstoppable. It was close to a sob.

The horsemen who had brought them down had fought with spears and swords from the saddle. Their horses were larger than the horses of the clans, but they were not slow and clumsy, oh no. They were swift and strong. They were the finest animals Kabil had ever seen.

"Why didn't they tell us?" he said, speaking it out loud. Another prisoner looked up, his expression bleak. Kabil didn't know his name.

He had seen at almost twenty of them taken as prisoners, and more picked up and carried wounded or unconscious from the field. He didn't know what had happened to Hasad. He was dead, and nothing would change that, but he would be lost for all eternity if his body was not properly treated after death.

"I will kill you!" Kabil screamed at his captors. "I will kill you all!"

"You won't get the chance," said one of the other prisoners. "Why are they keeping us alive? For some vile ritual. They mean to part us from our forefathers forever."

"All of us," said another. They were close enough to talk to each other, but tightly bound, and too far away to touch. "They wanted all of us. Two men almost got away. Did you see that? They almost got away, trying to bring the news back to Samir, but those savage horsemen hunted them down. Their horses were too fast."

"Why?" Kabil wondered. His throat felt raw and hurt when he spoke. He had a dim memory of weeping for hours. His arms felt empty with the absence of Hasad's body. "They should have killed us," he said. "I wish they'd killed us."

But at the moment when he had realised that they merely meant to bind him, not kill him, all he had felt was a huge and overwhelming relief.

That was his shame. He would never forget it.

Éowyn was waiting when Faramir finally found his way back to their chambers. Earlier, she had taken her sword out of the chest, and held it ready, as if preparing to meet a foe. She had run through the first few moves of the training drill, and then had stopped, sighed, and put it away again. But this time she had not wrapped it at all. In lay unsheathed on the top of her summer gowns; gowns that soon would be too small for her. There would be no hiding things then.

But for now… For now, Faramir was here with her. If he had come for counsel, she would give it. If he had come merely for comfort… Well, she would offer counsel, too. She had that right.

"You caught him, then," she said, because the news had come many hours before him.

"Yes." Faramir walked to the window, where he stood with his hand on the frame. "It's the right man. Captain Daerion from the Great Gate looked at him and is fairly sure that this is the man who attacked him."

"Who might just be a man with a grudge against the captain," Éowyn said, knowing that she was merely speaking Faramir's own doubts out loud. "An opportunistic robber."

"Yes," Faramir agreed, "but I think he is not. I feel it."

"And if you feel it, then it is most likely true." Éowyn came to stand behind him, a hand on his back. He was a shrewd reader of men's hearts, was this husband of hers. On this, at least, she would never be his equal. She had spent too much of her childhood alone, looking out at the grasslands and dreaming of things that she could not have.

"He tried to kill himself when they came to take him," Faramir said. "What would drive a man to that?"

"Tried?" Éowyn echoed.

"He was not successful," Faramir said. "He gave himself a deep wound, but I believe he will live." There was no happiness in his voice, although Éowyn knew that the guards had been under orders to bring the man in alive. "Why would he do that unless he had secrets that he wanted to stay hidden? Would a common robber do that? He would protest his innocence, surely."

"Has he been questioned?" Éowyn asked.

Faramir scraped a hand across his face. "I did it myself. Oh, but I still can still feel the cold and the hopelessness of those cells. They aren't even cruel cells. Prisoners are fed, and fettered if they have to be, but not ill-treated. They are silent, for the most part. There are no screams, no moans, no desperate voices sobbing for mercy. But…"

He trailed away. That was why he was in the window, she realised; because he was so desperately craving light. Wounded prisoners were sometimes taken to the Houses of Healing, she knew, but if this man was who Faramir thought he was, he needed to be somewhere more secure. Not for him a mere room in a guard house with sentries at the door, like most wrong-doers awaiting judgement. The deep cells were seldom used. Éowyn had never seen them.

"Did he talk?" Éowyn asked. Please, let him have talked! They needed answers. If the prisoner had talked, then Faramir would be saved from the decisions that lay ahead.

But of course he had not. Had he talked, there would be no doubt about who he was; no doubt of his guilt.

"Not a word." Faramir sighed. He was still in the window, still seeking light. "I tried every language that I know, in case it was a matter of understanding, but I doubt that it is. When you capture someone who doesn't share your tongue, they generally plead their innocence in their own tongue, even when it becomes plain that you can't understand them. It is an instinct, I think."

So what will you do next? She could not be so cruel as to ask it. She thought of the sword at the foot of her bed, and wished that this was a battle she could fight for him.

"They want me to hurt him," Faramir said, raising the subject that she had chosen not to raise herself. "The captains who came with me. The prison warden. They know what he is accused of: killing Captain Daerion, killing that guardsman, possible involvement in the attempt on Aragorn's life. They know that he might have allies and accomplices: traitors, perhaps, on our own side. They want names." He began to turn his head towards her, then back again, still seeking the light. "I want names."

"He tried to kill himself because he feared you would use torture to rip the answers from him," Éowyn said, because there was no point in protecting him. Anything she could say, he already knew. "He feared he would not be able to withstand it."

"So the captains believe." Faramir clenched his fist, fingers curling slowly inwards across the glass. "But it is widely known that the king of Gondor can read the secrets in men's hearts. The way the people speak, it has become more than it is: some kind of magic."

"And they know that you have a degree of that skill," Éowyn said. "It could be that this was what he feared. It could be that he know that no torture would make him talk, but a simple question could, asked by one with such a skill."

"Yes," Faramir said. "Or so I hoped. But it has not. Or maybe it is merely that I lack the skill to find the answers. Perhaps Aragorn could do it. I cannot. At least I have not. Yet." He sighed again, shaking his head. "I can't use torture, Éowyn. It's not who we are. This is a new age, an end to the evils of the past. We must be able to look at the kingdom we're building with pride and confidence. How can we do this if it is built on the very evils that we claim to fight?"

"It has never been our way, either," Éowyn said, remembering how amazed the Dunlending captives had been when they had been offered mercy after the Hornburg, rather than the cruel death that Saruman had told them would befall them, should they fall into the hands of the men of the Mark.

"No," Faramir said. Then he fell silence. Several times she thought he was about to speak, but no words came. I don't know what to do. She thought that was what he was trying to say. But when he spoke, his voice was firm again. "I will not do it, Éowyn. I cannot."

When she was a child, Éowyn had watched her father ride out with his men, and thought that strength was defined by skill at arms. There were no foes then that could not be defeated by sword and spears, or so she thought. The more she saw of life, the more she knew that this was not true. The more she saw of life, the more she wished that it really was true.

"I cannot," Faramir said. "No matter what the cost."

Thirty-one prisoners. Thirty-one prisoners in his care, and even now, Éomer was powerless. None of them spoke his tongue, and he had nobody with him who knew theirs. Few from Gondor had ever known it, and most of them had died in the attack on the outposts. The Ranger, Mablung, knew some words of it, but had gone with Aragorn. Aragorn spoke their language well, and could have finished this whole game by now, but Aragorn was gone.

He did what he could. He had ordered that they should be bound by the wrists and ankles, and tied to posts so they could not escape. But the ropes at their wrists had enough slack to allow them to eat, and he made sure that food and drink was brought to them. Those with wounds were treated, or at least kept from immediate danger of death.

As afternoon darkened into evening, he came to stand before them. The lords of Gondor were muttering, he knew. These prisoners were very likely responsible for the slaughter of the outposts. The vengeful ones just wanted them dead. The more temperate ones reminded Éomer of the effort involved in taking prisoners along with them on their march. Better to let them die in battle. Less risky, too, to fight to the death than to strive always to bring your enemy down without landing a killing blow.

It is your king's policy, Éomer could have told them, and not my own, but he was no coward to take that easy way out. He was a king, and Aragorn had left him in command. He ruled here, not these lords. He refused to win their obedience by hiding behind Aragorn's authority.

"They might be persuaded to betray their lords," he had merely said, "if offered the right inducement. And it may be that when we meet the enemy host, we have a chance to parley. We did not seek this war. Let us show them that we are not the merciless killers that they doubtless paint us."

"You will not be harmed," he said now, as he began a slow walk around the compound. "Nineteen of your number died, it is true, but we could have made it so many more."

Nineteen of them, and four of his, two from Gondor and two from the Mark. Hundreds had died under his command over the years, of course. It was something that every commander had to learn to live with. He had mourned them, and he would mourn them again when night fell and he was alone, but he could not dwell on their deaths, not now.

"You will not be harmed," he said again, but they did not understand him. As he made his slow circuit, they started to talk. Some of them shouted at him, hatred plain on their faces. Some sounded as if they were pleading with him. Even when you could not understand the words, some meanings were universal. 'Let me go!' and, 'I will kill you!' and, 'I saw my comrade die. What is life now that he is gone?'

Turning, Éomer gave his command. Aragorn had told him how these Easterlings buried their dead. It was not so different from the ways of the Mark. They buried them in mounds. Warriors they buried with their chariots. Great lords they buried with their wains. Unless they were buried by their own people, their spirits would wander, forever lost, or so they believed.

And so one by one, carrying them carefully, the Riders of the Riddermark brought out the Easterling dead.

"There's something there, captain," Mablung said. "Ahead of us in our path. Pale." He peered into the gathering dust. "A body?"

The king crawled up beside him. Mablung had learnt how to address him as 'captain,' but he could never think of him as that. 'Captain' was Faramir, and the king was the king, far above such everyday titles. But the king was trusting him to do this job well. He would not betray his king by accidentally calling him by a title that must not be overheard. He would do what was asked of him. What Ranger could do more?

It would have been harder had the king been less skilled at this game. Had the king acted like a rich lord unused to the wilderness, Mablung would have been constantly reminded of the differences between them. Instead, the king both looked and acted as a man entirely at home in the wild places of the world. His boots were dirty and his clothes were travel-stained. They were old clothes, clearly, but when he wore them, he inhabited the part. He was tireless, and he endured their scant rations without complaint.

There were times, only a few times, when Mablung almost caught himself thinking that he was out in the wilds with a comrade. No, he corrected himself, with a captain, because the king was better than him. When he wanted to go unseen, he went unseen. He never made an unintentional sound, and he could read tracks on the ground better than anyone Mablung had ever known.

When the War was over, Mablung had tried to live in buildings again, bound by the manners of the court. He had been born to such a life, after all, but after a dozen years spent out in the wilds, he had soon found it unbearable. He had lasted barely a year. Everyone knew that the king had spent decades as a Ranger in the north, but it had never occurred to Mablung to wonder if he, too, missed life in the wilds. Who would ever think to wonder that? Who would ever expect the king to have feelings just like any common man?

"A body," the king said now, "but a long time dead, it seems."

Neither of them moved. They had come to this height to look for living people in the lands around them. They would look a little longer before hurrying down to investigate what Mablung had found.

"Nothing," the king said at last. "Do you agree?"

"Yes," Mablung said. "Yes, sir."

They descended the slope carefully, the king going first. Although he was only a few paces in front of Mablung, his grey cloak made him difficult to see, as if the twilight was a shroud that coiled around him, trying to claim him.

The body lay in a small cleft between two rocks. It was hard to tell how old it was, because carrion was scarce in the Brown Lands, and the bones of any dead were soon picked clean by crows. But the bones were still intact, not yet scattered by wild animals or winter winds.

"One of ours?" Mablung wondered. "Or one of theirs?"

The king knelt beside the bones. The clothes had been torn by the carrion birds, but enough of them remained. They, too, gave no real answers. Easterling or man of Gondor, there was little difference in the clothing that scouts and messengers wore when they were trying to hurry through the Brown Lands. Beneath the skin, all bones were the same.

"He died facing west," the king said, "but that might not mean anything." He looked up, and Mablung joined him, both of them looking west. Was this man one of theirs: a scout of Gondor, racing back to the army with vital tidings? Was it a scout of the enemy's, returning to his lord with news? Or was it a man bound on a different quest entirely: a man caught up in a story of his own, dead for years, lying forgotten until Mablung and the king had come upon his bones by chance?

"Hasad!" Kabil shouted, unable to stop himself. "Hasad!" Hasad was still in his chariot, his arms resting neatly across his lap, as if he was merely sleeping. "Hasad!" Other prisoners were shouting, too, calling the names of comrades and friends. All around him there were shouts and weeping. They were going to desecrate their dead! Did they hope to force their obedience by torturing the souls of their comrades? Vile, oh how vile it was! "Hasad!" Kabil cried, but then, on the very edge of weeping, he remembered. Hasad had not been Hasad to him for many years, and had struck Kabil many times for calling him that. "Lord," Kabil sobbed. "My lord."

When he looked up again, the tall lord was looking at him. Was this the king of Gondor? He was tall, that much was true, but he looked like a mortal man, although his eyes were a disturbing colour, like a pale evening sky.

But power didn't always show itself on the outside. The king of Gondor could summon the dead. The clans had left so many dead outside the great stone city of Gondor, and the king of Gondor could make slaves of them with a snap of his fingers. "Don't," Kabil begged. "Please don't. Don't make a slave of him. Please don't." He thought of Hasad as he once had been: strong and proud and laughing in his chariot, the beads gleaming in his hair. Oh, but it was too much! It was too much!

The tall lord was walking towards him. He said something - a question? - but Kabil had no idea what it was. Hasad had understood some words of the westerners' tongue, but Kabil had never learnt it. And then the tall lord's followers were bringing Hasad's body over towards Kabil, carrying it carefully, almost respectfully. The tall lord spoke again: another question.

Does he mean something to you? That was what it seemed like.

"You killed him!" Kabil screamed.

The tall lord shook his head. He spread his empty palms, and took a step back. He crouched down, and pressed the back of his hand to Hasad's brow, then pointed to the horrible mass of infection that Hasad's arm had become. He shook his head again. Not us, he appeared to be saying. He would have died anyway, even if you had killed every last man of us.

It was true, of course. It was true, and that only made it all the more impossible to bear. Kabil tried not to sob. He could not sob in front of this lord of his enemies.

Then the lord himself picked Hasad up, and moved him even closer to where Kabil sat bound to his post. Once again, he stepped back. When Kabil moved his bound hands to touch his lord's dead face, the enemy lord did nothing to stop him. When Kabil stroked his dead lord's cheek, the enemy lord looked away, granting him a moment alone to mourn his dead lord.

No, Kabil thought, because it was too late now, and Hasad would never strike him again. Not my dead lord. My dead brother.

They buried the bones beneath a pile of stones. At first it seemed as if there was nothing to mark the grave with, but then Aragorn found a young sapling struggling to grow in a thin patch of arid soil. He uprooted it as carefully as he had uprooted the White Tree, and placed it on the grave, packing its roots with handfuls of soil.

Perhaps it would grow, and perhaps it would not. It was important to have tried.

"I would like to travel a few more miles before we sleep," he said. His heart was unaccountably heavy, brought down by the sight of a man who had died alone, far from home. The dead man had probably had loved ones, but there were no tokens on his body to allow him to be identified. If he had worn jewels or any badge, jackdaws and magpies had taken them away, seeing them only as pretty, shiny things. His kin would remain forever ignorant of his fate.

There had been times in Aragorn's wanderings when he had feared that such a fate would befall him. There had been times when he had been wounded and far from aid. He had known that he would be mourned if he failed to return to the north, but he had feared, too, that they would never know what had become of him. Like the last king of Gondor, he would have disappeared into the dark, and nobody would have known for sure if he was dead, or if he would return again one day, the last heir of Isildur returning to the people who had given him up as lost.

Since leaving the army, he and Mablung had walked for two full days. It was easy to lose someone in two days, if you did not know the direction they had walked in. By the end of two days, there was a vast expanse of space that they could be lost in. Even if they did not encounter enemies, there were many ways for travellers to die in the Brown Lands in the heat of the summer, with its rocky terrain and the scarcity of water.

Legolas was tracking them, or so Aragorn had to believe. Whatever befell Aragorn and Mablung in the days to come, they would not be like the man they had just buried. They might die, but every day brought the risk of death, and great lords had died from foolish accidents in their own halls.

They might die, but they would be found, and the story of their ending would be known.

The ground was too hard for the digging of anything other than shallow graves, but there were rocks a-plenty. Éomer could not unfetter all the prisoners, but for each of the dead, he had identified one of the prisoners who had particular cause to mourn him. One at a time, he let them use the spade. One at a time, he let them carry rocks and boulders to cover the graves of their comrades. They did so hobbled, of course, and closely guarded. Three of them had tried to escape, but none had succeeded.

It had been a slow job to persuade the prisoners of his intention. Many of them had clearly thought it to be a cruel trap. Some of them still believed that, but they could not risk refusing. If there was any chance that they were genuinely being offered a chance to bring peace to their dead, they had to take it. They shared not a word of each other's tongue, and they came from different cultures, but it was not so hard to understand them, after all. Would Éomer had acted any differently if he had been a prisoner and someone had brought him the body of Théoden King?

"Why?" he heard the captains of Gondor muttering. "We have not yet buried our own dead."

"Because they are men," Éomer said, "and we are men. We do not wage war on the dead. They cannot harm us any more. It would be cruel to deny them their rest."

"But we haven't yet buried our own dead," someone whispered, not meaning him to hear it. Éomer turned, and saw that it was one of his own men; one of his own Riders, who fell to his knees when he realised that he had been overheard.

"Because our dead require more honour, Eadwine," Éomer said. "We will deal with the prisoners first, and after that, the whole night is ours for mourning."

It was almost dark now, the whole scene lit by the flickering of fires. It would have been easier, Éomer thought, if these Easterlings had burnt their dead, but that was not their way.

The lord they had buried in his chariot. The rest of them they had buried with their weapons. "Say what words you need to say," Éomer told the one who had most deeply mourned the fallen leader. "Say whatever words you can to bring them peace."

They didn't understand him, of course, but they spoke. One after the other, they spoke, and there was no anger in their tone, not as they addressed their fallen dead.

He wondered what they were saying. He wondered if he would ever know. Perhaps it was best if he did not. What people chose to say to their fallen dead was something strangers had no right to hear.

At length the words fell silent. By the light of the fire, Éomer saw that many of the prisoners were weeping, but some of them were smiling even through their tears.

It was time to leave them. I have done it, Aragorn, Éomer thought. Now let me mourn my own dead.