Chapter twenty-three: Black Sails

From Swords Against Umbar, by Galion Whitesmith, F.A. 1700

When the black sails of Umbar were sighted in the distance, beacons bore the news across Belfalas and the southern fiefs. Some who saw those beacons hid in fear, because these were the lands that had suffered greatly at the hands of the Corsairs in the past, and they had thought never to see those sails again. Most, though, stood and prepared to defend their homes.

They were not unprepared. It was then several weeks since King Elessar had first suspected that an attack from Umbar was imminent. At the same time, however, he knew that he was unable to attend to it in person, at least for a while. He considered it advisable to lull the lords of Umbar into thinking that their ruse was undetected, in the hope that this would tempt them into rash action against an enemy that they considered weak and unprepared.

However, the southern fiefs were not unprepared. Throughout the king's absence, Lord Faramir had been busy, labouring secretly in Minas Tirith with maps and orders. By the time those first sails were sighted, Prince Imrahil of Dol Amroth had spent weeks preparing the defences of his princedom. Other southern lords worked equally hard. Most of this action went largely unreported at the time. Most of our sources for the events of this summer come from Minas Tirith, where the people had their own troubles: troubles which blinded them to the preparations taking place in the south.

Granted, the need for secrecy hampered Imrahil and the others a little, but not by much. They could not muster openly, but they made no secret that a muster was being prepared. In case they were being observed by spies from Umbar, they put it about that they were preparing a second army to go into the Brown Lands after the king. After all, when Elessar had marched, he had taken with him an army that was small even by the standards of the day. Ostensibly this was because of the need for haste. In reality, of course, it was done to spare as many men as possible for the defence of the south.

So when Umbar attacked, the south was far from being undefended. True, Elessar was not yet there in person, but it is easy to over-estimate the effect of this. In our popular histories and our novels, King Elessar is sometimes given the credit for all the military victories of his day. He is painted as an expert swordsman and a tactical genius whose mere presence guaranteed victory. As with so many of the accepted truths of popular history, reality is far more complex. Gondor, we must remember, had won many victories in the years before the coming of the king. Prince Imrahil and the Lord Steward were gifted commanders in their own right, respected by all who knew them, and many of the lords of the south had led their own levies through a dreadful war.

Elessar was indeed the only person who could have brought about the happy outcome in the Brown Lands. Nobody else could have negotiated peace with Samir. Nobody else would have even thought to try. However, when Umbar launched its attack on the south, the absence of the king was not the crippling blow to the forces of Gondor that some have tried to paint it.

More crippling, of course, was the fact that the attack was in itself a feint. Even without the king, the southern fiefs were well defended, but the southern fiefs were not, in fact, the target of the main attack. That would come elsewhere, where few indeed were in place to defend it.

By the second morning, their callused hands were raw despite their long years at sea. Before their journey was halfway done, the wind faded, and they had to use oars as well as their slackening sail. They reached home not long before dawn, barely an hour earlier than Remdir had hoped to arrive before he had seen the black sails in the south. Only an hour, but it could be that an hour made all the difference.

Even that early, they had been spotted, and their families were down on the quayside, waiting for them. "Daddy!" Remdir heard, and followed the sound of the voice to pick out his wife from the cluster of people.

He hugged his wife, wrapping his stinging hands around her. "Black sails," he whispered, his mouth against her ear. "Corsairs are coming."

"Yes," she said, and he realised suddenly that she was trembling. "The warning came two days ago: not that they'd been seen, but that they were expected. You were out on the ocean by then, of course, and we couldn't… I couldn't…" She pushed him away, holding him at arm's length and gazing intensely at him, as if to reassure herself that he was really home. "Oh, Remdir…" She laughed, but he knew her too well, and knew that she was crying really. "You come with this news, but most of all, I feel relief. Is it wrong of me?"

"No, not wrong at all." Remdir pulled her close again and kissed her. He knew how much she worried when he was out at sea, even at the best of times. "So they were expected, then?" He gave a wry laugh, louder than was needed. Clinging to her mother's skirts, the little one was looking anxiously up at them. "And here was I thinking that my name would be told in stories as the first to bring the news! Would you like to hear your daddy's name in stories, my darling?"

The little one nodded gravely, but his wife sucked in a sharp breath. "Don't…" He frowned, puzzled, then thought he understood. Apart from the king and great heroes, people were usually only named in stories because they were dead. Every year, on the anniversary of Sauron's fall, every village solemnly sang the names of their dead, and gathered together to remember them.

"So preparations are afoot, then," Remdir said. "What's happening? I should-"

"Unload your fish," his wife said firmly.

Remdir shook his head. "But the Corsairs…"

"Unload your fish," she said. "If you let them rot in their nets, then we'll go hungry and have nothing to trade." But if the Corsairs were coming, hunger would be the least of their worries, and who would be free to trade with them? "If you let them rot," she said, "then you are handing them the first victory of this war without even putting up a fight."

He opened his mouth to protest, but couldn't do so. She was right, he thought. He was a sea fisherman, and he was free to ply his trade because of the peace that the king had brought them. If he was called to join the defence of his village, he would do so. If he was summoned to a levy elsewhere, he would go. If the black sails were sighted from the quayside, he would prepare to meet them. But until that happened, he would continue to earn the livelihood that peace had brought him. Even if it was for the last time, he would bring in his catch.

From The Tale of Éomer Éadig, by Elred son of Elwine, F.A. 430

The command came from Éomer King, and Elfhelm heard it. Haste was needed, and things did not yet seem so dark as to need the full muster. Seldom in all the long years of the Riddermark has the full muster been called, and seldom may it be called in the years to come!

A thousand men did Elfhelm gather from the Eastfold, and when they were mustered, he drank the stirrup cup and bade them ride forth. Farewells were said, but there was little weeping. Songs were sung and spears were sharpened, and the thunder of hooves was heard once more in the Eastfold, ripe with crops and bright with the laughter of children.

Their riding took them not through the blasted wastes of war, and not through a land held by enemies. No, they rode through Gondor, through the fields of friends. Care must be taken when riding through the lands of a friend. In the lands of an enemy, crops can be trampled and livestock seized for eating. In the lands of a friend, an army rides as a guest. They cannot take that which has not been offered, but Gondor offered, and offered well. They brought welcome and the fruits of their fields. They marvelled to see the Riders, so tall on their proud horses, and clapped their hands together, and said, "The Horse Lords are riding into the east!"

Their welcome slowed the riding, as Éomer King himself had known it would. Fourteen days did it take from the time that Éomer King sent word, to the arrival of his men by the shores of the Anduin. There they found themselves expected, and a welcome had been prepared for them. There they stopped and rested, and awaited the command of their king.

On the morning of their second day there, a messenger came from Éomer King. He was on the far side of the river, approaching fast. The enemy he had summoned them to fight was not in the east after all, but in the south! "Are we to ride south, to the relief of Mundburg?" the Riders wondered, but the answer came nay. Ferries were to ship them across the Anduin to the island, and from the island to the eastern shores. There they would form up again and meet their king.

And from there they would ride. From there they would ride once more to war.

"I feel I have done this too many times already," Éomer said, as they stood on the bank of the river, shaded by its trees.

"Not so often," Aragorn said with a smile, "and this time, it is but a short parting."

"And not into danger," Éomer said, returning his smile. He would never forget the moment when Aragorn had announced his intention to leave them to seek the Paths of the Dead. It had seemed to be a decision that would lead only to death, and it had filled all who had heard it with dread and despair. When Aragorn had revealed that he intended to leave the army and seek out Samir alone, it had seemed scarcely less dreadful than his departure for the Paths of the Dead, although Éomer had understood the need for it. But this time… He shook his head. "Not into danger," he said, "but still going alone."

"Yes," Aragorn said. "I spent too many years as a Ranger, it seems. When there is something that I need to do, it seems that I do not think in terms of retinues and a company of guards." His mouth quirked into a smile, and he chuckled. "It is a bad habit of mine, or so I am told."

Éomer had fought his own battle with the restriction of freedom that lay upon a king. Again and again, he had forced himself to stay behind with the army, when his heart longed to ride into danger with his men. But, "Yes," he said, remembering that last departure, "perhaps it is."

But if Aragorn had not headed behind enemy lines to seek out Samir, where would they be now? Locked in battle with Samir and his men. Forced to send fresh armies into the Brown Lands to stem the Easterlings' advance, all the while knowing that Umbar was sweeping up from the south.

"But I will not be alone," Aragorn said, gesturing towards the boat that was approaching from the far shore. "Look! Someone has kindly provided two doughty soldiers of Gondor to be my escort, and the boatman himself is armed, I would wager."

But could they be trusted? The agent of Umbar who had tried to kill Aragorn two nights before had been a soldier of Gondor, his loyalty proved by oaths and by years of good service. What if these soldiers were enemies in disguise? They would wait until the boat was in the middle of the river, far from any watchers, and then they would strike. Or perhaps they were loyal, but an enemy was watching them even now, and would run along the river bank to lie in wait in the reeds, an arrow nocked and ready to strike.

No, he chided himself. No. There was always risk. He remembered a story that his mother had told him: the tale of a silly woman who was so terrified that there might be wolves outside that she never went out and enjoyed the starlit beauty of the night. Years ago, against the advice of some of his men, Éomer had trusted three travellers who had accosted him at a time of looming war. Caution and fear could have ruled him, but instead he had taken a chance on trust and on hope.

If they let the fear of spies and traitors paralyze them, then they were lost. The time for hiding in the darkness was over. A thousand men stood ready for him to lead them into battle. That was Éomer's part, and this was Aragorn's. As with the mission to treat with Samir, it was not something that anyone else could do.

"We will meet again soon," Aragorn said. "Within days, perhaps, depending on…"

"Yes," said Éomer, because it was not something that he liked to speak of overmuch. "Depending on that."

From Swords Against Umbar, by Galion Whitesmith, F.A. 1700

Elendil and his sons came from the sea, and the strength of Númenor had rested always in her ships. However, during the Kin Strife, the fleet was lost to Gondor. Castamir the Usurper was Lord of Ships, and after his death, his sons defected to Umbar, and the bulk of the fleet went with them. For the rest of the Third Age, Gondor maintained just enough ships to protect the coast from the worst ravages of the Corsairs, but the focus on their military strategy moved increasingly to the land.

All that changed when the Fourth Age dawned. "Thorongil," as you will remember, had been a great captain by sea as well as on land. When he claimed the kingship, he came, like Elendil, from the sea. From the start, he was determined to rebuild the great fleets of Gondor. In time, ships would regularly ply the coastal routes between Arnor and Gondor, or travel far to the south in search of allies and trade.

But all that was for the future. At the start of his reign, Elessar had few ships apart from the Corsair ships that he had seized at Pelargir. These were refitted, and turned from dark-sailed galleys to fair sailing ships crewed by free men. The shipyards of Pelargir were rebuilt, but his own raid on Umbar had taught him the dangers of concentrating a fleet in one location, vulnerable to attack. As well as Pelargir, he established new yards at several key places on the river between the bridges of Osgiliath and the sea.

Because the shipbuilding was scattered in this way, it is possible that the lords of Umbar under-estimated the naval strength of Gondor. Perhaps they knew that Gondor had ships, but believed that she lacked skilled men to sail them, since for years, the only people of Gondor they had known had been the farmers and fisherfolk they had taken as slaves. Elessar encouraged both misconceptions, it must be said.

By Cair Andros, Elessar took a small boat down the river. Éomer's men were brought across the river by ferry boats, for the great bridges there would not be built for twenty years. But all the way from Osgiliath to the sea, the ships of Gondor were stirring. The fleet was but a shadow of what it would one day become. Some ships were unfinished, and some crews were half-trained. But when the black sails of Umbar were sighted, they sailed, some to hold themselves ready at Pelargir, and others to engage the Corsairs who were heading for the southern fiefs. As Elessar travelled down the river and Éomer rode through Ithilien, the first blows of the war were already being exchanged in the waters of the south.

From The Summer of Twelve, by Merileth of Belfalas, F.A. 713

There were no rumours this time. For weeks, Minas Tirith had been ruled by rumour, but during those last few days, the rumours had died down. We now know, of course, that this was because the agents of Umbar who had been stirring those rumours were killed or taken. At the time, the people only knew that they felt more hopeful, more settled, despite the battles that they feared were being fought in the east.

When the news broke, it came not as a rumour, but as a formal announcement. Trumpets sounded and proclamations were made. The whole truth was revealed. The king had discovered that the Easterlings weren't the true threat, after all, and were innocent of most of the crimes they had charged with. A treaty was likely to be made, but before there could be talk of treaties, there was a fresh war to fight. Umbar was coming! Umbar had been behind everything, even the attempt on the king's life that had started it all!

No rumours, did I say? The announcement prompted a veritable flurry of talk. Everyone had an opinion, and gathered in inns and street corners to tell it to anyone who could listen. A few disbelieved the story, until letters started to come in from people with the army, confirming that they were indeed heading home. Some still distrusted the Easterlings, muttering that there was no smoke without fire. More, though, suddenly found themselves feeling strong sympathy with the Easterlings, wrongly accused of crimes they hadn't committed. Some were horrified by the narrowness of the escape, and tormented themselves with dreams of Gondor and the Easterlings tearing themselves apart in a dreadful battle while Umbar laughed. When they confessed it, they were often rebuked by their friends. "The king discovered the truth in time," they said. "Of course he did."

But when it came to the matter of Umbar, all were united. Umbar had paid a vile trick on the people of Gondor, and Umbar had to be punished. The Easterlings were an unknown foe, just one of the many who had come against Gondor in the War, but Umbar was a familiar horror returned. From Osgiliath to Dol Amroth, everyone knew the dread of those black sails.

After the attack on the king, thousands had volunteered to avenge it. Now they came forward again in their thousands, in their tens of thousands, to protect their homes. The king and his army were still far away. Who could plug the gap until their return? Lord Faramir would lead them, of course, but who would form his army? Why, they would, the people of Gondor!

The city seethed with fury against Umbar, but no matter how hard he listened, Seregon heard no mention of an attack on the Steward. The tall lord of Umbar never returned. He had taken the token and vanished from sight.

I can't bear it, Seregon found himself thinking. I can't bear the waiting.

Had he made his attempt, but failed in it? Was he implicating Seregon even now? He dreaded every moment that he would be dragged away. At night, he lay sleepless, listening for marching feet. But when he did sleep, his dreams were different. In his dreams, the marching feet belonged to the lords of Umbar, who came to him stern faced, demanding that he fulfil his oath.

I should do something, he thought. What if he was the only one left? Twelve years he had lost to this mission. It had to mean something; it had to. Nothing so useless as merely killing the hobbit. I was right not to try that, he thought, wiping his clammy hands against his sides. Something decisive. Something huge.

But he reported for duty as normal, guarded his gate, and went with his comrades to the tavern for drinks. His captain confided that he was close to the end of his latest term of service, and he was thinking of retiring rather than renewing his oaths for another seven years. His captain seldom smiled, but he smiled at Seregon, and clapped him on the shoulder. "I will recommend you to take over my captaincy," he said, "although I can't make any promises beyond that."

My captain? he thought, remembering how the proud lord of Umbar had corrected him on that. He was not called Seregon, either. That was merely a name he had assumed while waiting for his time to come.

And now that time had come. He laughed bitterly, and laughed again when people turned to look at him. Everywhere there was talk of war. Perhaps Umbar would win, and instead of two proud masters, he would have a whole army of them, striding through the ruins that they would make of Minas Tirith. They won't thank me for the last twelve years, he thought, but could he really be as petty as that? Could that be the heart of his discontent?

I should do something, he thought. Something to hasten that victory.

But he remained at his post, and he did what his captain asked of him. When he slept, the lords of Umbar stalked through his dreams, and the towers of Minas Tirith fell before them, the wreck of something truly beautiful.

Somewhere in the building, the dogs were barking delightedly. At least, Pippin thought they were barking with delight, but he knew little of dogs. "Should I get Little Faramir a dog?" he asked. Dogs were rare in the Shire, because they had a regrettable habit of growing almost as big as their owners, and knocking them flying when they leapt up to say hello. "A small dog," he added.

"Why not?" said Merry, who was, after all, one of the few hobbits to own ponies of his own.

Pippin sighed, and for a moment, he could picture Diamond and Little Faramir so clearly, so vividly, that it was as if they were here alongside him. But they were so far away. It was months since he had seen them. He had left them, not because war had called him, but because when he was at home, quiet domesticity wasn't enough for him. But now that I'm away… he thought.

"Is it wrong…?" he found himself saying. Merry looked at him quizzically, and he had no choice but to carry on. No secrets from Merry, of course. "Is it wrong to wonder what we're doing here?" he said. "To wonder what would happen if we just upped and went home tomorrow?"

Merry stopped walking. It was late evening, and they were returning from a quick trip to the kitchen to beg an extra supper. "I felt that during the War," he said, "especially when you went off with Gandalf, and then Strider and the others rode away. But at the same time, I didn't want to go, not when my friends were in such danger. I hoped that…"

"That one day, I would be useful," Pippin finished for him. "And that if I couldn't, at least…"

"At least I would be there to see what happened to them," Merry said. "At least I would know."

A door opened ahead of them, and a man came through it. Pippin barely glanced at him at first, then almost dropped his plate in surprise. Merry was less lucky, and a pile of bread rolls tumbled to the floor. The man crouched down to pick them up, and offered them up to them, smiling.

"Strider!" Pippin cried. "I thought you were far away. But now they say that Umbar's coming against us again. Did you know? Is that why you're back? How long are you here for?"

"It is a fleeting visit," Aragorn said. He looked very tired, Pippin thought, and there were lines of tension around his eyes, just as there had been on the awful journey from Weathertop. He looked older than Pippin remembered him, but perhaps he was thinking of the Strider he had first met nearly fifteen years ago. "I came down the river by boat. I had business in the city, but before dawn, I must depart again."

"Without getting any sleep?" Merry asked.

"Not without supper, surely?" Pippin said, offering him his platter.

Aragorn held up a hand in polite refusal. He smiled as he did so, but the lines of tension remained. "Sadly, I have no time to spend with friends, even such friends as you," he said. "But much has happened since last we met, and much of it is good, or less bad than I feared."

"But there's war!" Merry said. "That's what Faramir told us. Not with the Easterlings, it seems, but with Umbar."

"Yes," said Aragorn, "and it is against Umbar that I go, but…" It was not like him to trail away, to fail to finish a sentence. Even when he was playing Strider the Ranger, his words always sounded well considered and composed. It was probably because he was so tired, Pippin thought. Then Aragorn smiled, and clapped his hand on their shoulders, first Merry and then Pippin. "I believe that the worst is over, my friends, even though we ride to war."

They watched him leave, and stood there in the hallway long after he had gone, watching the closed door. "I saw him looking a bit like that before," Merry said at last. "It was worse then, of course, because Sauron had the other one, but, still…"

The palantír! Pippin thought, as bread and cheese rained from his platter to the tiles. He remembered joking about it, once. Just before they had parted from Aragorn and the others after the War, he had said how much he wished he had a Seeing Stone so he could watch all the friends he had to leave behind. The flippant comment had been necessary. The memory of the palantír would have remained too terrible without it.

"But he says the worst is over," Merry said cheerily. "We have to believe him, don't we?"

It was not said as a question, but Pippin nodded anyway, and then nodded again.

Just as it always was, the image of the burning hands of Denethor was slow to dissipate. Not for the first time, Aragorn wondered what he was doing, keeping the Anor Stone in Gondor, rather than adhering to his original plan, which was to use the Orthanc Stone and let the Anor Stone remain unused. The Stone of Orthanc could be used with little effort, now that there was no Sauron to challenge him for mastery, but the Anor Stone…

He let out a breath. No help for it. The choice had been made, and this was not the time to change it.

He had only hours for this. He had slipped silently into the Harlond by boat, and from there into the city unseen. He had been away for little more than two weeks, but what secrets from those two weeks could be revealed by the palantír? It had been enough to bring him home, just for these few snatched hours, but the palantír had told him little that he had not already suspected. It confirmed that he was right in this supposition, and a little astray in that. It confirmed a fear. It told him where his armies needed to go, and where swift messengers needed to ride.

It did not tell him if other agents of Umbar still walked abroad in Gondor, wearing the masks of friends. It was silent on Samir. In the palantír, the Brown Lands were barren and empty, occupied only by crows.

But although it was the palantír that had brought him here, the duties of the night were not yet finished. He blinked, trying to drive away the image of Denethor's hands. As he did so, his waking eyes saw the hand of a gaoler turning a key. "Follow me, my lord," he heard, and he did what the warder said, following the footsteps, following the hand that held the flickering torch. Down, he went. Down.

Fire, he thought. Fire and hands and darkness.

The prisoner was hunched in the corner of his cell. On the point of being captured, he had tried to take his own life. For a few days, the wound had turned bad, but it was now healing. Now he was trying to kill himself by refusing food and drink. Faramir had failed to get any answers from him, Aragorn knew. Faramir was troubled by his failure. That, too, he knew.

"You come from Umbar," Aragorn said. "There is no point in denying it. The truth is known."

"You!" spat the prisoner. "I know who you are!"

"Yes." Aragorn moved close to the bars, then crouched down beside them. He nodded to the warder to bring the torch close, illuminating the prisoner's drawn face. He was foolish to refuse water. When a man was parched, his strength of will faded. All too quickly, he lost all sight of what was real and what was not, and he would say anything and do anything if he thought it would quench his thirst. "And I know who you are," he said, although he did not know the man's name, merely the sort of person he was. He had travelled through Umbar in his time. He knew how to recognise one of her proud lords.

"I won't talk," said the prisoner. "I told the Steward. I won't talk."

Aragorn leant closer. "You are no fool," he said. "You must know that the captains wanted you tortured, but the Lord Steward resisted them. But you would not have talked under torture. Would you?" he said, turning his full gaze upon the man. It was less than a hour since he had looked in the palantír, and the memory still remained. Until it faded, he saw more keenly and more deeply than he usually did.

The prisoner's eyes were hectic, darting from side to side. "I won't talk. I will never talk. You will never know…"

"The names of the others?" Aragorn said. "Because there were others, were there not? One is dead, killed while attempting to murder the Lord Steward a few days after you were taken. Another rode with the army, and he, too, is dead, having failed in his task. And the others…?"

The prisoner was silent. I will not talk! his eyes said. No matter what you do to me, and no matter how you ask, you will get no more from me. Aragorn remained where he was, just watching him. Reflected in the prisoner's eyes, he saw burning hands and marching armies. Then, behind them, he caught the faintest flicker of despair: the despair of a man who was alone and captured, hearing news of the ruin of all his hopes. It was there just for a moment, and then it was covered. "I will never talk!" the prisoner said.

And he never would, Aragorn thought, unless thirst made him delirious. There was no use in staying any longer. That flicker of despair was the only hint he would be given. It suggested that no other agents remained, or if they did, they were ones that this lord deemed worthless.

Aragorn stood up, and turned away, letting the warder light his way up the stairs. Outside, he returned to the courtyard, and paused for a while, wondering how much time he could spare to spend with Arwen alone. Oh, how he craved her advice, her embrace, her comfort! She knew he was here, of course, but theirs had been but a brief greeting, before he had climbed the steps that led to the palantír, alone.

It was there that Faramir found him, walking slowly with his wooden crutches. "Faramir," Aragorn said. He wanted to embrace him, but was afraid of hurting him. You have done well, he wanted to say, but Faramir was no child, to be patronised by such a reassurance. If reassurance was needed, he would give it, but not like that.

Faramir gave a wry smile. "We have been occupied, as you can see."

"Indeed you have," Aragorn said. Faramir had been a pillar of strength during his absence, he knew. As well as wrestling with the problem of traitors in the city, he had single-handedly coordinated the preparations for war in the southern fiefs. By necessity, most of that had been carried out in secret. They had jointly agreed that they could bring very few lords into their confidence. The few that they trusted, like Imrahil, were already out in the field. Aragorn had been able to confide in Éomer, Legolas and Gimli, but Faramir had opted to keep everybody, even the hobbits, in the dark about the true state of affairs, remembering how his father had been able to uncover secrets from Pippin's chatter. Aragorn could only hope that Faramir had been able to confide in Éowyn. He could only hope that he had been allowed at least some hours a day when he could lay aside the mask. All men had doubts, even kings and their stewards.

"And more is to come, it seems," Faramir said.

Aragorn nodded. He wished that Faramir could return to Emyn Arnen and heal from his wounds in his own home, but Gondor needed a ruler, and in the absence of the king and an adult heir, it had to be the Steward. As far as Aragorn was concerned, Arwen could rule in her own right, but the people of Gondor were not yet ready for such a step. They loved and respected her, but they put her on a pedestal. If anything, they loved and respected Faramir even more, but he had once been one of their own, they were not afraid to approach him for rulings and judgements, and they accepted his word as if it came from Aragorn himself.

"How long are you here?" Faramir asked.

"Barely hours now," Aragorn had to reply. Time enough to talk, but before they came to matters of war and policy, he needed to talk about something that might seem to Faramir to be the least important thing of all. "The man who attacked you showed a token," he said. "What has happened to the guard who let him pass?"

"He is confined in the guard house," Faramir said, "because he failed in his watch. That is the law."

"Yes," Aragorn agreed. "That is the law." He looked up at the stars, and remembered the night in which he had approached Samir's camp. "Pardon him," he said. "The judgement is yours to make, but I would urge you to let him resume his duty without blame. No," he said, when Faramir made as if to protest. "I used the same ruse myself, and had I not done so, we might be facing a war on two fronts, instead of just one. We have lessons to learn from this. There is too much deference in Gondor, and our soldiers are afraid of listening to their own judgement, but he should not be the one to pay the price. Let it be known that he is blameless. It is easy to make mistakes."

"Yes," Faramir agreed. "Yes, it is."

"Indeed it is," Aragorn agreed, remembering his own mistakes of the last few weeks. He smiled wryly. "But you have made none, or so they tell me. The enemy agents have been captured-"

"I could not make him talk," Faramir said, perhaps the only man of Gondor who would ever interrupt his king; Aragorn wished at times that they were more. "I saw a hint for a moment - a hint of despair that he could not conceal - but-"

"I saw that, too," Aragorn said, "but nothing more. He revealed nothing more. Some men never do."

"We will have to remain watchful in the city," Faramir said, "but our attentions must turn outwards now, to the war." He shook his head. "I find it a relief to have it out in the open. I am not fond of keeping secrets."

While secrets came naturally to Aragorn, it seemed, because of the circumstances of his life. He had spent a lifetime hiding his true identity. Hiding his true intentions from his lords and captains had felt no different, but perhaps it should have done so. Perhaps he, too, had lessons to learn from this. "But the time for secrets is nearly over," he said.

"And the rest of it?" Faramir asked. "You've looked into the palantír. This I know." They seldom talked about it. It was one of the few occasions when honesty between them was soured by the memory of Denethor. Faramir knew that Aragorn used the Anor Stone, but chose not to talk about it, and Aragorn respected that choice. "Is it nearly over, too?"

"I… do not know," Aragorn said. "I hope so. They come against us in force, but we are not unprepared. Much was staked on the gamble in the east, but it proved correct, or so I hope. I hope…" He might have finished it, might have found a more polished answer, but this was Faramir, and Faramir deserved to see the truth of him, without masks. "I hope," he finished, just that.