Midwinter. It seemed so far away, almost unimaginable in the heat of summer. The dry road baked beneath her feet, and sweat ran down her neck, and she narrowed her eyes against the glare. But already the sun was setting earlier in the evening, and wheat stood nearly ripe in the Breeland fields. Autumn will come soon enough. And then a wanting whispered through her, so keen it took her breath, and though summer dust hung in the air, she could nearly feel the clear breath of winter. Soon, it whispered. Soon.
They camped that night just off the road, for they did not fear danger in this country.
"You've not been to the Brandywine?" Anna asked, as they ate fresh bread and summer fruit from Bree.
Miriel shook her head.
"Camp's in the woods off the road, mile or two east of the bridge. Halflings up here don't like to see us." Anna grunted, not quite a laugh. "We make them nervous. But we can watch just as well from there. Seven or eight in the Shire garrison, most times, but not more than three or four at the bridge. The others will be out patrolling the borders." Anna glanced at her. "Rossion is captain. You know him?"
Miriel thought for a moment, then nodded. "I've never spoken to him. Father knows him, though." A small, wry laugh. "Father knows everyone."
Anna smiled, warm and true, an expression so rare Miriel felt her heart turn over. "That he does." A pause, and then, "He was a great Ranger, your father. Might have been a captain himself one day, if—" The smile faded, and Anna shook her head. "It happens." Her lips tightened, and she swallowed. "But Sirhael…" She blinked, and looked away into the darkness.
"And Silevren." Miriel did not know what made her say it, had not realized she would speak until she spoke. Silence, but for breath and crickets. And then, very quietly, willing Anna to understand, "I loved her, too. She…she believed in me." A soft, hollow laugh. "More even than I believed in myself." She did not say what Silevren had told her, on the night of the trial as they stood by the fire. 'You could be a captain someday, if you live.' But she heard the words clear in her mind, and found herself blinking back tears.
Movement beside her, rustle of grass in the dark. A hand grasped her shoulder, then slipped round her back. "I know. And she was not wrong." And neither did Anna say what Silevren had told her, asked of her. 'Let her be the one you give to the Rangers...' The girl has enough burdens, as do I.
But this is not one. Not any longer.
They came to the Brandywine watchpost not long after noon the next day. Rossion was there with two others, both very young, though the captain himself was gray and weathered. He pushed up from the log where he had been sitting, smiled wryly and spread his arms in greeting. "I didn't think to see you here again, Anna. Not wild enough, that was it, yes?"
Anna grunted. "We're not staying." And then, a grin twitching her lips, "That was eight, nine years ago, old man. You remember back that far?"
"Years matter more to the young." Rossion chuckled. "And you're a hard one to forget." Then his smile faded, and he shook his head. "But this is my last season, I think. Age comes, even for the best of us." He gestured to the two young Rangers. "They will have the watch next year. And perhaps her as well." He nodded to Miriel, and she flushed. Then he turned back to Anna. "Where will you go?"
"North. Show her how to cross a wide river." A wry half-smile. "And how to avoid halflings."
Rossion laughed. "Well, stay the night at least. She should see the bridge." He nodded toward the two young Rangers. "And they could use a hard sword drill; they've had it easy with me too long."
The young men glanced at each other, and Anna smiled thinly. "As you wish, captain."
It was only a mile more to the bridge over the Brandywine, arched stone piers built in the days of the kings. They stood stolid and and gray in the westering sun, feet rooted in the river, weathered and lichen-spotted but kept in good repair by halfling masons. Miriel gazed at it, for here was something of ancient Arnor that still lived, still breathed, when Annúminas and Fornost and all their grandeur were long gone to ruin.
"It is still ours," said Rossion quietly. "Though they do not know it."
Miriel glanced at him, surprised that his thoughts so closely echoed hers. But why should I be? We are of the same line, though at beginning and end. But not truly, for it began long before us, and will end long after us. 'On the strength of one link in the cable…' She thought of Faelon, smiled a little and shook her head.
They did not cross the bridge, only stood hidden in tree shadows and watched the evening bustle in the hamlet beyond. Cheerful voices floated over the water, the neigh of a pony, a smith's hammer, the laughter of children. She felt suddenly, painfully lonely, and longed for home. Her eyes burned, and she turned away that Rossion might not see. And perhaps he did, and perhaps not, but he said only, "That is what we protect, as much as our own people." A short laugh. "They know we are here, but little more. And that is as it should be. We do not speak to them, and they ignore us, live their simple little lives and take us for granted." And there was bitterness unmistakable in his voice. But he said no more, only turned and strode back down the road toward the darkening east.
They left early the next morning, following the river north amid brush and willow, and came at midday to a place where the water divided around an island. Anna led her down to the bank, and gestured toward river's two arms. They were narrow, hardly wider than the flooded ford far to the north that she had swum with Calen the year before. "If we were sensible," said Anna, in a tone that assured Miriel they would not be, at least not today, "we would cross there, in two stages, using ropes. But you've done that before." A sidelong glance, and Miriel knew she must have had the whole story from Faelon. "No need to do it again." She gestured to the much wider expanse of flat brown water in front of them. "So we will cross here." A small, wry smile. "At least it's not cold."
They stripped off their clothes, and Anna showed her how to make floats of her trousers and shirt, tied at ankles and waist, wrists and collar and hem. "Won't last forever, but it should be enough to keep your gear dry." Carefully they set their packs on the makeshift floats, though anything that would not be harmed by a soaking they tied around their waists. And then they waded into the water. The bottom was soft and muddy, almost clutching, and Miriel was a little relieved when at last they floated free. The current was slow, and the burdened swimming awkward, and she forced herself to avoid thinking about fish eyeing her feet in the murky water. But they reached the far bank without incident, and laid their clothes and gear on sun-warmed rocks to dry.
"If need be," Anna cautioned, "we could go on. And there may come a time when you must. But not now." She stretched out in the sun, and closed her eyes. "Halflings don't come to the river often. But keep your eyes open." A drowsy chuckle. "And don't let me sleep so long I burn."
Miriel watched her as she slept, pale skin and scars, belly moving gently as she breathed. And she remembered the summer before, sharp words and resentful silence, her mere presence a burden amid grief. Now she watched Anna sleep in the sun. She let me watch her. Asked me to watch over her. And then, a whisper in her mind, words she had heard but never spoken. Gwethor nin.
They spent a fortnight crossing and recrossing the halflings' land, moving first at night and then during the day, as Miriel proved she could guide them without being seen. Or mostly without being seen. Anna kept a tally, as if awaiting some unspecified punishment for each time they were discovered. "If he were an orc," she hissed, the first time a round, wide-eyed face peered at them from behind a tree, "we would be dead." That was all, but it was enough, and Miriel spent the rest of their time in that fat, peaceful land alert for danger behind every fence and bush.
"This is worse than the Wild," she muttered one evening, after they had barely avoided a halfling girl making her quiet-footed way along a path in the gathering dusk.
"Yes," said Anna, expressionless. "It is."
And that is the point.
But at last Anna was satisfied, or perhaps she had simply had enough of hiding in hedges and ditches. They turned north, leaving the settled lands behind them, and climbed up into a broad moorland, brown and gold with the first chill of autumn. Anna said the halflings considered it part of their Shire, though they did not live there, only hunted and sometimes grazed sheep. But they saw no one, and traveled quickly, mostly by night, until all signs of habitation were left far behind.
The Hills of Evendim rose before them, and the nights grew cold as the north wind hissed through bare grass and gorse. But Miriel breathed the sharp living air, brushed her fingers over the yellow blossoms, and then over her bow, and she smiled.
They followed a valley up into the hills, crested a bare ridge at sunset and camped in a shallow draw beneath gnarled juniper bushes. As they descended the next day, the draw deepened to a ravine, the ravine to a rocky valley. At last they came to a place where the valley swept round a ridge, and opened abruptly onto a broad expanse of rolling, grass-grown land. And below lay the gray ruins of the city, beside its jewel-clear lake.
It was strange, Miriel thought. She had been here not so long ago, yet it seemed almost a different life. Meren and Hannas and Lain and Calen, Faelon behind them eagle-eyed, watching their mistakes, sometimes correcting, sometimes letting them play out. But there was a sense that he would never let things go too far wrong, that it was only training. But this felt real. This is real. And so it was with new eyes that she entered Annúminas.
They did not speak as they paced the silent ruins, damp with autumn rain. She saw places she remembered, and others she did not. Anna let her lead, and she did not know where she was going until she got there, and turned a corner to find the solid silent vault of echoes before her. She stopped, stared at it, glanced at Anna. And then without speaking she went in.
It was cool and dim; the scuff of her boots echoed on the stones as it had before. But when she settled her mind and closed her eyes, listening with everything in her, there was nothing. What had been there, if it had been there at all, was gone. And she found when she thought of the linnaidh that it did not seem right. Not now. Before it was, but not now. Why? No answer. And then her father's voice: 'Not all questions have answers. But that does not mean they are not worth asking.' She smiled a little, shook her head, and cast about for something else to sing. And because she had been thinking of her father, she thought now of her mother, and very softly she began "Lady of the North."
It had to be slow, she found, else the notes would clash in dissonance. But sung slowly, each note sounded alone, clear and echoing, almost harmonizing with itself before the next. And when at last she was done, there was perhaps a lingering echo, a song not of sound but of spirit, and she could not have put it into words. 'But not all things that are true can be spoken.'
Soft and harsh in the stillness: a boot on dirt. The light changed, brightened, and she knew Anna had been standing in the door and was there no longer. Unobserved now, she gave a small bow, to anything and nothing. And then she turned, and left the vault of stone to the echoes of silence, and memory, and wind.
Anna stood a little way off, facing away from her. When Miriel approached she did not turn, but only began walking down a street of tumbled and broken stone that led toward the lake. They came at last to a rocky shore above clear water. Cold wind rippled small waves, and pale autumn sun glittered on the water.
"Why did you sing that song?" Anna's voice sounded strange, but her hood was up, and Miriel could not see her face.
"I—I don't know." You do know. And you owe her honesty. "I was thinking of my mother." And then, more softly, "That is the song my father sings her."
Anna said nothing, did not move. Driven by an impulse she could not name, Miriel said, "My mother did not want me to be a Ranger. Father did—does. But she is afraid." She had never said this before, not even to Meren, though she did not doubt he knew.
"And your sister?"
It was an unexpected question. She felt a twist in her stomach, resentment and longing and envy and love. Too many things, and she could not sort them out, and so she settled for the simple truth. "She does not either. She says Rangers are rough, and cruel, and too likely to die. She wants me to stay in the village, to stay safe." And this time they both heard it, though neither spoke it aloud: Nowhere is safe.
At last, when it seemed Anna would ask no more questions, Miriel asked quietly, "What is that place?"
Anna looked surprised. "Faelon didn't tell you?"
"No. I—he didn't know I'd gone in. I…told no one but Calen. He found me singing. I—" Suddenly self-conscious, "There were echoes…"
Anna let out a breath. "I know," she said quietly. "I have been in that place." A pause, and then, "I do not sing. But I know."
And tentatively, feeling for words as she spoke, "It felt…alive. Like there was…someone there, almost." She knew it sounded foolish. But Anna frowned, and did not laugh.
"Faelon really didn't tell you?"
"No."
Silence for a long while. And then quietly, carefully, "It is said the men of Arnor swore their oaths there. Even after the city was abandoned, they went down from Fornost to Annúminas, to this place of the kings." Anna's voice seemed different, the cadence no longer her own but that of the storyteller, reciting a tale she had heard. "It is said that is where the false king went, after Arvedui was lost, to claim the crown of Arnor. And that is where Ellenen killed him, and his blood and the Brave One's ran together into the dirt, and is there still."
Miriel knew the story; they all did. In the Hall at night they listened, heard how Ellenen killed the false king but was grievously wounded, and had he not been a healer himself he would have died.
But perhaps the grace of his ancestors saved him,
the oaths of kings sworn to the North.
And he did not die, but lived and led
the armies of Arnor against the shadow.
And when at last victory was near,
he went alone to offer peace.
Foolish, some said, bravery gone
at last to rashness, the folly of age.
'And perhaps he will not grant it.'
To his councilors who urged caution:
'Perhaps he will not speak with me,
or speak and then betray.
And perhaps he will kill me.'
And the lords cried out in sorrow.
But with a hand he silenced them.
'And if he does, what matter?
What does Arnor lose,
but one old and tired man?
But if that old man's foolishness
brings peace at last, my brothers,
then how many young men
will live who would have died?
His councilors were right. The Witch King lied. But the army of Arnor, the army that Ellenen built, stayed true even without their leader, for that is what free men do. The army of Angmar was utterly crushed, and the Dunedain reclaimed their shattered land. And it is said that the Brave One's spirit returned to Annúminas, to the echoing hall where he swore his life to the North.
Notes:
I decided not to go full Anglo-Saxon alliterative verse for this one, mostly because I first wrote it as prose, and I wanted to keep some of the original language. I think it works, though. Poetry isn't really my thing, but sometimes it seems like the right thing.
"Lady of the North" is a very slightly modified version of the Scottish song "The Queen of Argyll," by the folk band Silly Wizard.
And there are a couple of Easter eggs in this chapter for any Navy folks in the audience...and because we're inclusive, a nod also to the Long Gray Line. You're welcome ;)