This is the second of today's two chapters. Back to one chapter a day tomorrow.
Chapter nineteen: The Token
The following speech appears in The Twilight of Umbar, a collection of documents compiled in Pelargir in F.A. 45. It is attributed to one Sakalkhôr of the Quays, c. F.A 12, but the original source is now lost
The proud cities of Gondor and Arnor have crumbled into dust. Only Minas Anor remains. The last city of Númenor, they call it. But our city is older still. Our city was built by the Lords of Númenor before the Fall. Ours was built when Númenor still had kings. Theirs was built by a traitor to the last, great king: Elendil the Faithless, a rebel captain who came with stolen heirlooms and a rag-tag band of refugees, and dared to set himself up as a king.
Black Númenoreans, they called the founders of our city, because they dared stay faithful to the memory of the last king. Fallen, they called them, and they strove ceaselessly to drive them out of their own city and steal it from them. At length, they succeeded, but they had no right to it, and could not keep it long. Again they stole it, and again they lost it. It is ours now, and ours it will ever remain!
Who are we? We are the descendants of Númenor before the Fall. Few of that bloodline remain. Some dwindled and mixed their blood with lesser men. Some fell in battle. Some disappeared into the south. The men of Gondor think we have gone forever, but we will never die. The lords of Arnor hid themselves in the wilderness and endured the scorn of the people they had once ruled. Fools! We have hidden ourselves from the eyes of Gondor, but we have never accepted scorn. There are few of us, and at times we have been driven far from our cities, but we have always been lords.
Who are we? We are the descendants of the sons of Castamir, betrayed king of Gondor. Less high is our lineage than that of the lords of Númenor, for we have the blood of Elendil the Faithless in our veins, but we are still of the blood of the West. What was the crime of our forefather, Castamir? Merely that he tried to keep his bloodline true, while his kinsman on the throne of Gondor was content to mix his blood with that of lesser men. We brought with us the fleet of Gondor, and our skill with ships is beyond compare.
Who are we? We are the descendants of the men who lived on these shores before the lords came from across the sea. We are the descendants of those who sailed with the sons of Castamir. We are the descendants of those who came from Harad to join the cause of these new lords. We are descendants of people of Gondor who were taken as slaves, but pleased their masters and, in time, were freed. We are a mixed people, and because we do not rule, it matters not. Our blood combines the strengths of many people, and all those people have cause to hate.
Who are we? We are many and various, but we all come from Umbar
Who are we? We are many and various, but we all united by hate.
Who do we hate? We hate Gondor, and most of all, we hate her king. Many years ago, when our grandfathers were young men, we prepared a mighty fleet, but all came to naught. The fleet was not destroyed at sea, in a mighty battle worthy of song, but was burnt at the quayside by a captain of Gondor who came sneaking in at night like a common thief.
But we did not waste the years in fruitless mourning. We built the fleet again, stronger, far stronger than before. When the time was right, we sent it against Gondor. Once more, all came to naught. The same captain came against us. Once more, he killed us unfairly. Once more he cheated. For he came against us with an army of the dead. What can men do against the dead? Thousands left Umbar. Barely a dozen returned. Most had drowned. Some fled, but died in the wilderness on the long road home.
Who is he? Who is this captain who burns our ships like a thief in the night? Who is this captain who comes against us with an army that no living man can withstand? He is the same man. He calls himself the King of the West, and while he lives, the dead of Umbar will never be at rest, for how can they sleep when they are unavenged? How can they sleep while their slayer lives?
Unite, men of Umbar! In ships or on horses, in carts or on foot, follow your lords. Follow us, and make Gondor burn!"
Seregon was kept waiting for two whole nights and the long, slow day in between them. Two nights with the token hidden in his pouch. He was always aware of it. He felt that it was blazing there, the king's seal like white fire glowing through the worn leather of his pouch. Two nights. Nobody came to find him. Nobody came to give him orders or receive his reports.
Were they all dead? He began to fear it. All dead, he thought once, and when he came to himself again, he was standing very still in the window, looking out at the white towers and the green and gentle trees. All dead, and the mission come to naught. Nothing left for him but to make his weary way back to the emptiness that was all that remained of his home.
Or to stay here, he thought. To stay here, in this sham of a life that he had built for himself. To stay here and wait. More lords would come one day, and more orders.
But on the second morning, a man was waiting for him in the old meeting place behind the trees. "I had something for you," Seregon said reproachfully. "Two nights ago now." Two nights spent in fear that the theft would be discovered. Two nights worrying that the token had become worthless, or worse. Two nights worrying that very sight of it would cause the Citadel guards to slay the one who held it. "I didn't know how to find you."
The other man looked at him with disdain. Despite the oaths Seregon had sworn to them, they had never entirely trusted him. He had gone down on his knees and prostrated himself as he had sworn his loyalty, but they had given him just scraps of their trust. They left him in the dark; that much was plain. He didn't know if this man was the only one who remained, or if there were many more of them. He had given up twelve years of his life to infiltrate this city of enemies, yet to the lords who had arrived in the city just weeks before, he was the least important of them all.
He didn't even know their names.
"Tell me why I should allow you to find me?" asked the nameless lord. "So you can fail me, as you failed him? You knew how to find him, and now he has been taken."
Seregon shook his head. "That wasn't-"
"Your fault?" said the other man. "You were on duty at the gate when that meddling spy brought the news of his whereabouts. And yet you did nothing. You brought no warning. You did nothing to stop them bringing him down."
"I couldn't!" Seregon protested. "My captain-"
"Your captain?" the other man said coldly. "Is he your captain now?"
"Captain Othoner left me in charge of the gate," Seregon said. "I couldn't leave my station, not without throwing away everything I've worked for these last twelve years. Not without-"
"You knew where he was." The other man grabbed Seregon's upper arm, and held it tight enough to hurt. It was hard to look away from the cold ferocity of his grey eyes. "He was waiting to meet you, was he not? You could have walked away from that gate and brought him warning-"
"I didn't know!" Seregon protested. "I knew that the Bloodhound had brought urgent news, but I didn't know it was about… about him." No names. They didn't even trust him with names. "And even if I'd brought the warning, there was no way for him to escape. The Bloodhound had already surrounded the house with his own men."
"Puny men," sneered the other man. "Rats who scuttle around in the shadows. He could have fought his way out."
"But it would have been the end for me!" Seregon protested. "No way back. If I abandoned my station… If I was seen bringing him the warning…"
The other man pushed him away in imperious disgust. Better you than him, he was clearly thinking; everything about him shouted that. Seregon heaved in a great breath, then let it out again. Perhaps he was right. Seregon knew but little of the great plan. He had been away from his homeland for twelve years, and even if he was broken and persuaded to tell all, there was little that he could say.
But I've given up twelve years! he wanted to shout. Twelve years. I can't just throw that away!
"But he is strong," said the other man, with a grim smile. "No matter what they do to him, he will not talk."
And you would, he clearly meant. You are weak and worthless, and you would talk.
"He gave me a task." Seregon tried to say it with dignity, but he was afraid that it only sounded surly. "He told me to find you the means to gain entry to the Citadel and kill the Steward." He reached into his pouch and drew out the token. "I might not have been able to stop what happened, but I did see this. By staying at my post, I saw the Bloodhound show this token, and I have obtained it for you. Two nights ago I obtained it for you." He held it out. "It is a token stamped with the king's own seal. Its loss might have been discovered by now, but if not… Surely all doors will open to the person who carries this."
The other man snatched it from his hand without a word.
It was hard to keep yourself cheerful during the day when you were getting so little sleep at night. But it was necessary, Pippin thought. Everyone else was so tense and worried. Sometimes they went for whole hours without smiling, so Pippin would say something - just a little joke or some self-deprecating comment - and people would smile again, if only for a little while.
It was what he did. He didn't seem to be that good at anything else. He and Merry had saved that nice Captain Daerion, and that was certainly good, but since then, they hadn't done much at all. They'd made several tips to the city, but hadn't unearthed any secrets. They couldn't question prisoners. They had no power to watch over their friends from afar and keep them safe. They had swords, and had held their own against the ruffians in the Shire, but neither of them would stand for long against a man trained for war. It was hard to do so when you were small.
At night, as he struggled to sleep, it was hard to not to remember such things. Sometimes he would give up on trying to sleep, and get up and wander into the sitting room that he shared with Merry. He hoped to find Merry there, but although the door to Merry's bedroom was never completely shut, the room was dark inside. So he would wander to the window instead, and look out. Sometimes he would open the window and lean out as far as he could. When he did so, he saw many windows with lights inside. How many other people spent these nights awake, unable to sleep?
The danger to Aragorn would be greatest just before dawn, Arwen had said. That dawn had come yesterday, and day had followed it, and then another night. He was still alive; she had told them that. Still alive. Still in danger.
Still alive.
Another dawn had come now, and another morning. Pippin rubbed his eyes, yawning. "I'm hungry," he said quietly. "What's for breakfast?" That would have been enough to earn a few fond smiles, but he was alone now, and there was nobody to smile at the insatiable appetite of hobbits. It's true, though, he thought. I am hungry. He yawned again, and stretched, wincing at the stiffness of his limbs. It had been fully dark when he had come to sit by the window, and he must have been sitting for hours without moving. Hours? It hadn't felt like hours. Perhaps he had dozed a little, after all. He had faint memories of things that could not have happened, except in dreams.
Arwen herself seemed like a dream at first, almost floating as she walked across the greensward outside, the morning mists parting before her.
Before he realised what he was doing, he was running from the chamber. Along the hallway, down the stairs, across the stone-flagged entrance hall, lined with pillars. The door warden bowed and opened the door to him. There was a cold bite in the air outside, and the ground was wet beneath his feet.
Arwen was in the garden, as he had known she would be. His steps faltered as he neared her. She was all alone, and she was facing away from him. All around her were flowers, both white ones and gold. The golden ones were elanor; that much he knew. He remembered the white ones from Lórien, but didn't know their name.
She wants to be alone, he thought. Has she had bad tidings about him? But if that were so, how could he walk away?
"Arwen," he said, and despite the evening they had spent together, it still felt strange to say her name. "My lady." She turned, her trailing gown brushing the flowers and filling the air with sweetness. "Are you…?" He faltered. "Have you…?"
They had never doubted her. He and Merry had spent many hours talking about it, heads together, voices low. What was Aragorn likely to be doing? Was there anything they could do to help? What would happen? When would they know? But never, not once, had they as much as whispered the possibility that she might be wrong. Fourteen years ago, they would have laughed at the very thought of it. That someone in Michel Delving should know instantly that a friend in Buckland was in danger? Impossible! Such things happened only in stories. Now they had friends who could do things that to any hobbit, would seem like magic.
Arwen smiled. "The danger that I foresaw has passed."
"Passed? Oh. Oh. That's good." Stupid words, he knew. He wanted to move closer to her, but was scared to crush the lovely flowers around her. "Was it a battle?" A battle was bad. Winning it was good, of course, but it was too much to hope that nobody had died. They always did, even if the history books counted it as a great victory.
She shook her head. "Not a battle. There will be no battle now, not there, I hope."
"Not there? Then where? Will-?"
He stopped himself abruptly. Fool of a Took! he berated himself, hearing it, as he always did, in Gandalf's voice. There would be time for questions later. She was a wife who had spent the last two nights knowing that her husband was in danger, and knowing that there was nothing she could do to help him. Now she had just found out that the danger was past. Aragorn was safe. Everyone was safe, because surely Arwen wouldn't be smiling if she knew that Aragorn was grieving for a fallen friend.
"Well," he said, "I'm very glad to hear it. It's excellent news. The best." He smiled, and was embarrassed to find it turning into a huge yawn. He let the yawn, in its turn, become a laugh, and she laughed, too. Her laugh was like sunlight on the waters of Lothlórien. His was a silly thing, just the laugh of a hobbit, but it felt good to laugh together, and even better to have a reason for laughter.
He was in the wrong company, Aegon thought, as he stood guard on the gate. Yesterday, the third company of the Citadel Guard had been stationed in the courtyard, guarding the White Tree. Yesterday it had rained on and off all day, and Aegon had spent half of it standing still and impassive as rain dribbled off his high helm and down the back of his neck. Today they were on gate duty, protected by the tunnel from whatever the weather decided to throw at them. Naturally, today the weather was fine. How the lads of the second company would gloat in the mess hall tonight! Yesterday, they'd been nice and dry in the tunnel out of the rain, and today they were outside, enjoying the return of the sun.
Still, he thought, it beat night duty, which the first and fourth companies were currently stuck with for the rest of the month. And at least it wasn't winter. And whether it was winter or summer, it was better now than it must have been in the days of old Denethor. At least now they got cold and wet while guarding a living tree, not an old stump.
His head was aching. He had drunk a little more than he should have the night before. Nothing wrong with that, of course. To be chosen for the Citadel Guard was a great honour, but they were still men, and men had to have their fun when their duties were ended. Nobody minded, as long as their senses were still sharp in the morning, and as long as they could stand on sentry for a double-watch without moving a muscle and without ever ceasing their watch.
He shivered. Perhaps it wasn't the drink. Perhaps he was going down with something, thanks to standing out in the rain all day, after two weeks being boiled alive inside his armour. Night duty would have been a welcome relief during the hottest of days. Only an hour to go until he was relieved. Then four hours off, and another four hours on. He would endure things until then. No choice, really.
And he was ready and alert when the tall man came hurrying along the tunnel. Along with the others, he barred the way.
"I need to see the king," the tall man said. It was definitely an order, not a plea.
"The king is out of the city," Aegon said. "The Lord Steward rules in his stead."
The man sighed in irritation. "He will have to do, then, if the king cannot be found." He had a strange accent, not like anything from Gondor. He wore a grey cloak, and he looked faintly familiar. "Let me through!" he commanded.
Aegon shook his head. "I'm afraid I cannot, lord. All other gates in the city are open, but this is the Citadel gate. I need to know-"
The man looked at him with such contempt that it was all Aegon could do not to take a step back. "I am close kin to the king, and you try to stop me? All the way from Annúminas I have come to see him, and you would refuse me entry to my kinsman's hall?" He reached into his pouch and brought out a small round disc. Upon it, the king's seal was unmistakable, appearing almost to glimmer white in the gloom of the tunnel. "Let me through!" the man commanded.
Aegon swallowed. Definitely going down with something, he thought. He wanted to glance at his comrade beside him, to see what he thought about things, but a Citadel Guard did not waver. He guarded the king and the Citadel, but he also obeyed. This was clearly a man who was accustomed to giving commands, and the unfamiliar accent could well be the accent of Arnor. His cloak certainly resembled the cloaks worn by the Dunedain of the North at the king's crowning. He looked vaguely familiar because he was of the blood of Westernesse, and all those people had a similar look to them. And then there was the token, of course…
"I shall summon an escort for you, lord," Aegon said, lowering his head in a bow.
"No need," said the lord from the North. The token gleamed in his palm. The king's seal. The king's command. Aegon would rather die than disobey his king.
He bowed again, and ordered the gate to be opened.
"We hadn't thought to see you back so soon," the healer said. "Of course, we never like to see anyone back again. Sick of their faces, we are, after a few days of treating them." He laughed, then turned quickly serious again. "No, if people come back, it means we haven't done our job properly, and have sent them out into the wide world too early. Of course, if it's a soldier, it probably means he's gone and done something stupid like exercising when we've expressly told him not to. But you aren't a soldier, are you."
"No," Lainor agreed, although it hadn't been phrased as a question. "A weaver." Or he had been. He wasn't quite sure what he was now.
"Yes." The healer nodded. There was a glint in his eye that made Lainor suddenly sure that he was much sharper than his prattling suggested. The healers had been kind during his stay in the Houses of Healing, but he had been a prisoner, even so. "Yet now you're back. Is it the old injury resurfacing? Dizzy spells? Or a new one? Your arm's in a sling, but it was your skull that you'd hurt, was it not? The soldiers do that, too: come in for one injury, then go out and get themselves injured all over again. It's just how it is for some people. They live dangerous lives."
But weavers don't, his eyes said. Weavers don't, but thugs do.
"It's nothing," Lainor said, nodding down at the arm. "I'm here to check on someone else. Mínir? They brought him in the night before last?"
"And you're a friend of his?" the healer asked.
He wanted to say yes, but how could he? Yes, he wanted to say, because Mínir had been the only person to visit him here, and the only person who had tried to help him. But what was he to Mínir? Not a friend. He would never be so arrogant as to assume that. "I saw him getting attacked," he said, "and called for help."
"And got that arm saving him." That didn't sound like a question, either.
And stayed with him afterwards, his hands smeared with his blood. Called his name. No response. He was breathing, though, and corpses didn't bleed. Shouting for help, and people coming running. The first had been a ragged man who seemed to know Mínir. The second was a guard who tried to drag Lainor away from Mínir, but the ragged man had turned to him and said, "No, it wasn't him. I saw it but was too far away..." Others had come up afterwards, and he had heard snatches of the words they exchanged with each other. "Poor fellow," and, "near killed for the contents of his purse." Wrong, they thought it. Shocking, and so very wrong.
"But did I?" Lainor asked. "Did I save him?" He shook his head. He hadn't meant to ask it like that. It couldn't be about him. "Is he still alive?"
Two nights he had waited. He had expected them to come for him. "Best get that arm looked at," was all that the guard had said to him, before Mínir was carried away. But Lainor had summoned Mínir. Lainor had sunk so low that he had begged a stranger to help him. It had been a test, in a way. Mínir had promised that he could find Lainor no matter where he was. Lainor had asked him to come, and then he had waited. If Mínir found him, then perhaps he was meant to take the man's help. If he didn't… If he didn't come, then…
But he had come. No need to think now what he would have done if he hadn't. He'd come, and been attacked and half-killed while coming to see him. Surely somebody would be putting two and two together, and deciding that Lainor had deliberately lured Mínir into a trap.
"Does it matter a lot to you?" The healer was watching him with those keen, knowing eyes. But then his face softened, and he smiled. "No, I am not that cruel. He is alive. He is barely aware of his surroundings, which is just as well, because we've had a constant flow of unsavoury-looking characters coming to visit him." He wrinkled his nose. "Some of them are far from fragrant. They claim that he's their captain; would you believe that? But he's alone now. You can visit him if you like."
It was just as well that the healer prattled as he did, because Lainor could not have spoken. It surprised him, the sheer weight of his relief. But now he knew, he should just walk away. Why would Mínir want to see him now? Why would anyone?
He remembered the sight of curtains shivering in the breeze from a window that he could not reach. He remembered the dreams that had come to him, alone and hurting in a bed in this very house.
"Yes," he said. "Yes, I would."
She found Merry wandering alone in the garden, looking more than a little lost. "Pippin's gone back to bed," he said. "He says he hasn't been sleeping well."
"Who can blame him?" Éowyn said. "None of us have, I think."
It was so easy to think that you were alone. It was so easy to think that you were the only person who found it almost unbearable to be unable to do anything to help; unable to make a difference to the great events that were unfolding so many leagues away. When you caught someone else smiling, it was easy to think, See? They don't feel it as I do. They don't suffer like me. She might have thought that once, long ago. Her despair had been all-encompassing, and she had been incapable of wondering if other women felt the same as she did when their men rode off to battle and left them at home.
"I know," said Merry, "but Pippin…" He sat down on a bench, unthinkingly choosing the one that was too low for her. When making the garden, Arwen had placed the bench there for visiting hobbits and for the children that she hoped to have one day. "He's younger than me. I don't suppose it makes much of a difference now, but it did when we were young. I was always told to take care of him. We…" He ran his hand through his hair, looking a little embarrassed. "We used to get into scrapes, and sometimes they were almost dangerous ones, but Pippin was always cheerful. No matter what we did, he stayed cheerful."
"He still does," Éowyn said.
"Yes," Merry seemed to agree, although he shook his head slightly as he said it, perhaps unconsciously. "But I always took comfort from it: that's the strange thing. You know how it is when you're a child, and something's a bit scary, and you look anxiously at your parents, and you see that they look happy and relaxed. So then you relax, too, because you know it can't be that bad."
Éowyn nodded. She had been so cheerful around her own little ones these last few days that at times it had felt as if her face would split from smiling.
"With me, it always worked the other way round, too," Merry said. "I was older than him, but it was as if… If Pippin was still cheerful, then it couldn't be that bad. It wasn't big or scary enough to scare a little baby like him." He gave the sad, fond smile of someone lost in memory. "It was like that during the war, too. When we were with the orcs. At Isengard. I was putting on a brave face for him, and he was putting on a brave face for me, but between the two of us, we pretty much ended up convincing each other that everything would turn out well."
"And it did," Éowyn reminded him.
"Yes," said Merry. "It did." He laughed. "Listen to me! Pippin's admitted that he hasn't been sleeping well and has gone back to bed in the middle of the day. That's all. By the way I'm talking, it's as if…" He shook his head, and did not finish.
It was only natural, of course. They had endured a difficult few weeks and an even more challenging few days. When water was building up behind a dam, the smallest of cracks could cause it all to come bursting out.
I wish Faramir would go back to bed, she thought, because whenever she had woken during the night, he had been wide awake beside her. "Maybe we should all go back to bed," she said.
Merry shook his head. "I couldn't. I don't think I could sleep." He stood up, and she noticed that he was wearing his sword. He was clearly unused to having it there, and the sheath scraped against the stone bench. He grimaced at it. "It still feels wrong," he said, "but all the men in the Citadel wear them, and…" He let out a breath. "Foolish, isn't it, to feel that wearing a sword can make a difference to whatever dangerous things Strider's been getting up, but that's how it feels."
"I know," Éowyn said, but her belt was empty. Every morning, she took the sword from the chest, and every morning, she placed it regretfully back again. In Gondor, ladies wore no swords. She was a Shield Maiden of the Riddermark, but she was also the wife of the Steward of Gondor, and although she refused to change who she was, she could not undermine her husband's authority by causing consternation wherever she went. It was just as Merry had said. At dark times, children looked to their parents to show them how afraid they needed to be, and the people of Minas Tirith looked to their leaders. She had urged Faramir to keep the gates open for just this reason. How, then, could she be seen in public wearing a sword?
"I know," she said again, and she held out a hand to him. "As neither of us can sleep, and Pippin and Faramir aren't with us, what shall we do with our day?"
Merry thought about it for a little while. "Lunch," he said, at last. "Lunch would be a nice start, and maybe a nice pint of beer."
Éowyn laughed, and laughed far longer than his words merited. And that, she realised, was why he had said them.
"The wind has changed," Legolas said. "It blows from the south-west."
Éomer knew too much about elves to doubt him, but the air seemed still to him. It felt like the quiet before a storm, or the stillness after one. The rain had stopped, and the air was warm and damp. It made him eager to be doing something. It made him eager to be gone.
"From the south-west?" Gimli gave a disgusted snort. "Then it comes from Mordor."
"Passes over Mordor," Legolas said, "but comes from the sea. Ah, the sea! It brings sunshine after rain. Even now, the sun shines in Ithilien."
"And it is to Ithilien that we must go with all haste," said Gimli, "if I understand things aright."
"It is," Aragorn confirmed. He still looked weary, Éomer thought, but only to eyes that knew him well. He had slept for four hours, before emerging from his tent to reveal what had unfolded between him and Samir. By necessity, he had kept it short. Gimli had asked the most questions, but Éomer had kept his questions to practical matters of what would happen next. There would be time enough for a detailed telling afterwards.
"Are you sure you can trust this Samir?" Again and again, this was the question that Gimli returned to most often. "Are you sure you can trust him to take his army home?"
Aragorn was silent for a while. If Aragorn had been an elf, Éomer would have thought that he was using his keen vision to gaze into the distance. Perhaps he was, if only in thought. "I believe that we can," he said. "And he is not unobserved. We have scouts watching his movements, just as he has scouts watching ours."
"You know this?" asked Gimli.
Aragorn smiled. "I said that they could. We are far from being friends, Samir and I. We watch each other like a pair of circling wolves, alert for treachery. If either of us starts advancing instead of withdrawing, then the other will be ready to face them."
All around them, the army was striking camp. As Aragorn had slept, Éomer had watched the news sweep through the army. Several important captains had gone with the prisoners to meet Samir, and had heard the negotiations between Aragorn and the enemy leader. Aragorn had given them permission to tell the other captains what had transpired, and between them, to announce it to their men. Éomer didn't know how the men-at-arms of Gondor had received it, but he knew how the news had been received by the Riders of the Mark.
The sons of Eorl had always loved great feats of war, but they had lived through a war more dreadful than anything their grandfathers had ever seen, and they had come to love the peace that war earned. Had Éomer commanded them to retreat in the face of Samir's army, they would have obeyed him, because they were a loyal people, but they would have found it hard to endure. "But this was just a shadow of a war," Éomer had told them. "The true enemy lies elsewhere. We do not retreat. We have shown our mettle, and it is in part because of our skill at arms that this Lord Samir was so quick to accept a truce."
Not a retreat, but an honourable withdrawal from a near-battle that had been averted. Samir and his army had been tricked, and it was a shame to shed the blood of men who only opposed you because they had been duped by a lie. Every Rider of the Riddermark would willingly die defending their homes or the homes of their allies, but they had no desire to die in a dishonourable cause. Far better to turn and fight the lords of Umbar, who had used trickery and lies, as Saruman had done.
And they remembered Cenred, who had offered himself up as a hostage, because he wanted this truce to hold.
"But you mean to leave today," Gimli said, "before the army does. Who will lead the army if Samir betrays you?"
"I must leave," Aragorn said. "On fast horses, without the men-at-arms to slow us down, we will be back in Gondor within days. Haste is needed now. Even if they march an extra ten miles a day, an army on foot will be too slow."
"So they march slowly back through the Brown Lands," said Gimli, "with one eye on the east, in case this Samir goes back on his word, and one eye on the west and the south, where you say the real war will happen. Their leaders gone…"
"There are many captains of Gondor," said Aragorn, "who led companies, and led them well, long before Gondor had a king, and long before the Lord of the Eorlingas rode with them as an ally. I have chosen one to command the army. He will do it well."
And it would not be Éomer, not this time. This time, when Aragorn left the army, Éomer would be riding alongside him. The muster from the Eastfold would have reached the Anduin now. When they reached Cair Andros, Éomer would have an army of his own.
"Dol Amroth has mustered," Aragorn said. "The fleet appears scattered, but each ship is ready to respond and to go where it must. The southern fiefs are ready. We could ill spare the army that I brought north with me, but spare it we must, until it can march back south again. But at least we do not have to fight a war on two fronts. That was the fear that drove me from the start."
"But there remains one problem," Legolas said.
"Yes," said Aragorn. "The agent of Umbar. They had agents in the city; this we know. Would such agents allow us to march out of the city and out of their sight? I believe not. They must have an agent hiding in the army, and by now he knows that the plan to set us at the throats of the clansmen has come to naught. What will his next move be?"
"You do not know?" Gimli shook his head. "You have seemed to know everything these last few weeks."
"No," said Aragorn. "No, I have not been able to discover who he is, and I do not know what his next move will be. But he will make one; of that I am sure."