Author's Note: Well, here it is… the day we've been working up to since Boromir crawled out of the Orc den. I hope you enjoy it!
— Chevy
Chapter 19: Constant Star
The day of Boromir's wedding dawned bright and fair, and high atop the Tower of Ecthelion, Aragorn awoke to the sound of music in the streets. He lay listening, smiling to himself, then turned to see his lady wife, who slept but little and always rose before him, perched in a window embrasure. She had a bemused expression on her flawless face that widened his smile.
"What holds you so enthralled, meleth nîn?"
"The people are singing."
"Aye."
"For Boromir."
"Aye."
"Do they not care that today he weds a woman so far beneath him in rank that she cannot even call herself the Steward's wife?"
Aragorn's brows rose. "Why should they? What is Gil's rank to them so long as she makes their Steward happy?"
"'Tis strange," Arwen mused. "When you told me of his trials at the time of your crowning—the attempts on his life, the scene before the Council—I just assumed that all Gondor had swallowed Halbarad's lies and turned on him."
"Nay, not so! All those who fell prey to the whispers were men who knew him not. Or who knew Denethor too well and thought Boromir too much like his father, as proud and unbending, as prone to despair. But his own people, the soldiers who served under him, they never wavered in their loyalty and devotion. They love him."
Arwen turned to face him, her brows arched in question. "More than they love their King?"
"Why do you ask that? Do you doubt my people's love for me?"
"Nay, but this feels different. I can hear it in their song. It is warmer, closer to home, as if a brother or son were marrying today."
"So it is, for Boromir is one of their own in a way that I can never be. I am of the blood of Númenor, the House of Elendil, rightful King of Gondor, and like to a legend walking beneath the skies of Middle-earth to my people. But the sons of Denethor were born in the Citadel of Minas Tirith, reared on her streets, trained up in her armies, blooded in her wars. Gondor is in their very bones and blood. And Boromir is the man who led the charge against the hosts of Sauron, drove the orcs from the shattered gates, and saved the city."
He laughed and added, ruefully, "My timely arrival at the Harlond with ships full of soldiers to turn the tide of battle is all but forgotten in the stories told of Boromir's triumphant ride. He is now and will ever be their most beloved Steward, and I do believe that the blindness which so discomfits his peers only makes him the more precious to his people, for it adds pity to their love and the desire to protect him from every ill wind."
"He would not like to think that they pity him."
Aragorn laughed again, stretching in his bed and clasping his hands behind his head."We shall not mention it, then. What are they about now, can you see?"
Arwen turned again to look out the window. "Hanging garlands of flowers and banners of white silk upon every house." She shot him an amused look. "White. The Steward's color."
"Shall I send a company of the Tower Guard to take it all down, just to appease the Council?"
"They would only put it back up again. As you say, he will always be their beloved Steward. Mayhap we should do something for them—unofficially, of course—to commemorate this day."
"I could order the taverns and pastry shops thrown open to all comers in the King's name."
Turning once more from the window, Arwen uttered her musical laugh and crossed to the bed on light, dancing feet. "All the city will sing the praises of King Elessar—especially the bakers and brewers."
"I will see it done," Aragorn said, with a smile.
"The Council will not be so pleased," she reminded him, stooping to brush a kiss on his mouth.
"For giving my people a holiday? It is coincidence only that it happens to fall upon the wedding day of my friend and brother-in-arms." Catching her as she made to pull away, he murmured, "Come back to bed, wife."
"I cannot. I must to the Houses of Healing. My seamstress has finished Gil's gown, and I fear that it will take me all morning to force her into it."
Aragorn caught her head and held her lips close to his for a moment, teasing, "Is it so ugly, this gown?"
"Nay, 'tis so lovely that she will refuse to wear it. Unhand me, my lord, and let me about my business. Have you naught to do on this most auspicious day but lie abed?"
"Well, I must summon my heralds and send them out into the streets, if we are to give the people their holiday. And I had thought to stop by Boromir's chambers to see how he fares, but I doubt not that Merry and Pippin are there before me, and I shall only be in the way."
"Go anyway. He would like to see you on this of all mornings, I am sure. And he may need rescuing from the halflings."
Boromir did not appear to need rescuing, though his chambers were much busier and noisier than Aragorn ever remembered seeing them. Merry and Pippin were indeed there, shrinking the room to half its wonted size with their high spirits and generally getting under foot. So too was Borlas, though he seemed to take his duties seriously and stood, very upright in his black livery with the Horn and Stars of Anórien embroidered on the breast, refusing to be drawn in by the halflings' jests. Legolas and Gimli came in to greet their comrade but did not linger, and Faramir did not make it past the door. One glance round it convinced him that his brother needed no more company, and he promptly retreated.
Aragorn lounged against the table's edge, watching with an indulgent eye as Emrys, Boromir's body servant, fussed and fretted over his dress. Boromir endured it in silence until, finally, he lost patience and ordered the man to desist.
"Enough," he growled, "I am not a doll to be played with!"
"Certainly, my lord, but if you will allow me… a jeweled brooch to fasten your collar…"
"Press one more jewel upon me, and I shall choke you with it!"
The servant did not look at all put out by his threats, but he did set the brooch in question back in its velvet-lined box before running a critical eye over his master. "There is only your cloak, my lord."
"I think I can manage that for myself. You may go, Emrys."
"My lord." The man bowed and backed away but did not leave the room, Aragorn noticed. Rather, he retreated to the hearth, where he could keep a watchful eye on his master without drawing his ire.
"You look very fine," Merry said approvingly.
"Not too fine, I hope," Boromir retorted. "Gil will not recognize me."
"Never fear! She'll know you by your scowl!" Pippin assured him, brightly.
Boromir turned a masterful example of this scowl on the hobbit, but like Emrys, Pippin was immune to its effects. He merely chuckled, and remarked, "That's the one! I pictured it every night, as I lay in the rain with a tree root digging into my back, wondering why I ever left my comfortable hobbit hole to come looking for you! As it happens, I'm still wondering."
Boromir laughed, his frown vanishing. "Mayhap the feast will sweeten your sour mood and soften the memory of all those roots."
"I'm sure it will help. But first we must get through the actual wedding, and those are always tedious affairs."
"It is most generous of you to put yourself through such a trial on my behalf," Boromir said with mock gravity. Then, more seriously, "I thank you, Pippin, truly. For your journey and for your presence. This day would not be complete without you and Merry beside me."
"You don't need to thank us," Merry said, with the same quiet sincerity. "We wouldn't dream of letting you get married without us."
Boromir smiled in his direction, and Merry, as if drawn by a cord, went straight to his side. Boromir's hand came to rest on his curls, ruffling them fondly. "My dear Merry."
The sound of a silver trumpet carried through the open window, sounding the watch change, and Boromir's eyes turned instinctively toward it, as if he could see the progress of the sun across the sky or the guardsmen moving in the Court so far below.
"It's nearly time," Merry said. "We should be getting down to the garden."
"In a moment." He gave the curls beneath his fingers another ruffle, then said, "You, Pippin and Borlas go down and wait for me in the Court. And Emrys—aye, I know you are still there for all that you are being so quiet—you may join the celebration below stairs. I'll not need you again 'til evening."
A chorus of protests met this dismissal, but Boromir silenced it with a peremptory wave and a curt, "Begone, the lot of you. I want a few minutes' talk with Aragorn."
This sparked still more protests, but he finally managed to send his many attendants about their business with promises that he would not forget his cloak, trip on the stairs, or be late for his own wedding. When the door finally shut behind them, he sank wearily onto the nearest windowsill and groaned as he eased the strain from his leg. Aragorn watched this with a faint, worried crease in his brow.
"Do you need a cup of wine to dull the pain before you venture down all those stairs?" he asked.
"Nay, what I need is to keep a clear head if I am not to fall and break my neck."
"'Tis a long walk down to the garden, and if you leg already pains you..."
"Do not you start fussing, Aragorn, I beg you! Four nursemaids in one morning is more than enough! Though, to do Pippin justice, he is little inclined to coddle me."
"He is more likely to deliberately goad you to anger with his impudence."
"Aye. Bless him."
"But why did you send the hobbits away?" Aragorn asked, curiously. "What would you say to your friend and King on such a day that others may not hear?"
Boromir regarded him steadily for a moment, then said, quietly, "'Tis not what I have to say to you, but what I to give you."
Reaching into his collar, he caught the silver chain that lay round his throat and drew out a glittering, white gem. For a moment he let it dangle from his fingers, bright and beautiful in the sunlight, then he turned his hand until it rested on his palm. His blind gaze fixed upon it, and his face grew somber.
Aragorn rose to his feet and crossed to the window so that he, too, could look upon the gem.
Boromir spoke in a low, thoughtful tone. "You gave me this token when you entrusted your kingdom to my care. Little did you know, even with your uncanny foresight, how precious a gift it would prove to be or how I would come to treasure it. How loath I would be to surrender it."
"I have never regretted the gift nor looked to see it returned. It is yours, Boromir."
"Nay." With a smooth gesture, he pulled the chain off over his head and caught the gem, together with its loose chain, in his hand once more. "It is an heirloom of your house, the symbol of your kingship over Arnor, destined to pass to your firstborn son as it was passed to you. It is yours, Aragorn. But I would not have you think that I do not value it as I should."
He lifted his bandaged gaze to Aragorn's face and went on, earnestly, "I carried it upon the darkest of paths, into the very bowels of the earth, unto the brink of death, and its light never failed me. It was my guiding star, a token of your love so potent that Uglúk could not bear to touch it with his foul, Orcish fingers. Without it, I would have perished."
"Then keep it, I pray you. I would know that my friend and brother has his guiding star with him always."
"But I have." A smile of surpassing joy swept over Boromir's face, driving out the shadows of memory. "A star as bright and beautiful as any gem is waiting for me even now to take her by the hand, and from this day, I will never be without her."
Holding out the gleaming handful, he said, "Take it, Aragorn. Please. All the promises you made to me are fulfilled, the darkness fled. The Star of the Dúnedain must rest upon the brow of the King once more. Take it with my undying love and gratitude."
Aragorn took the gem from his outstretched hand, turned it in his fingers for a moment, then abruptly pulled Boromir up and into a fierce embrace. For a long moment he said naught, too overcome with emotion for words, then he murmured in the other man's ear,
"You call Gil a cave troll, then a star. What next will she be, I wonder?"
Boromir laughed, the sound rough with unshed tears. "Today? A hedgehog, I'd guess. Or mayhap a snail hiding its head in a shell."
Stepping back, but keeping a hand on Boromir's arm, Aragorn chided, "And this is the woman you would take to wife?"
"I do not fear her quills."
"Come, then, let us wed you to your hedgehog and hie us to the feast before the halflings die of starvation!"
Boromir took his Gil to wife in the gardens of the Houses of Healing, with Merry and Pippin beside him and Aragorn saying the words that bound him to her forever. Up until the moment she stepped out of the Houses with Arwen and Ioreth in attendance, he had feared that she might come up with some excuse to miss her own wedding, but in the end, she did not keep him waiting for long. She walked straight up to him, her long skirts swishing over the grass, the flowers in her hair filling his head with perfume, and laid her cold, trembling hand in his.
All the people they loved most were there to see it—Legolas and Gimli, Faramir, Éowyn, Borlas and his father, the Warden, and an odd collection of urchins who claimed to be Gil's secret spy army. Even Imrahil had made it in time, arriving just the night before in the swiftest of his Swan ships. Only one valued friend was missing, Éomer King. Boromir had sent him word of his intended marriage but had not waited for the Lord of the Mark to travel all the way to Minas Tirith. Such a delay would only give Gil time to panic.
So it was that Boromir received at last from the hand of his beloved king that which he most desired. When he brushed a light, courteous kiss to Gil's unsmiling lips and knew that she was truly his, he wished that he still had eyes with which to shed the joyful tears that gathered in his throat. And when she took his arm to walk with him up to the Citadel and their wedding feast, he thought his heart might burst from the sheer enormity of his happiness.
Gil stood at the window, gazing down on the flaring lights of the city below, listening to the distant echo of song and celebration. The feast in the Court of the Fountain had finally ended, the music and laughter quieted, but all Minas Tirith was yet awake, feasting, dancing, drinking the health of their beloved Steward and his new wife. None seemed to know or to care that it was not the Steward of Gondor who had wed this day, but simply Boromir, soldier and citizen. The people cared naught for agreements made to placate the Council. Let the nobility sulk over Boromir's foundling bride. Let them hide their perfumed heads in the citadel and scoff at the city's gaiety. The people of Gondor would love their Steward if he tied himself to a cart horse.
He might just as well have done so, Gil thought ruefully, as she turned away from the window. Lady Arwen had dressed her in fine garments, but she was still a drudge who knew more of slop-jars and mucking floors than of courtly manners. Even this most familiar of rooms, so comforting in its stillness and darkness, seemed strange to her tonight. This was the place where Gil the squire had knelt in service to her liege lord, but the squire in her breeches and boots had given way to the wife in her wedding finery, and as such, she did not know what to do with herself.
A small table stood before the hearth. Crossing to it, Gil lifted the crown of flowers from her hair and set it carefully upon the polished top. She then unclasped the girdle—a gift from Arwen, fashioned in Lothlórien by her mother's kin, and far too precious a thing for Gil to wear—from her waist and laid it beside the wreath. She wore no other ornaments, naught else that she might remove to lessen the weight of strangeness upon her, save her dress, and Gil had not the courage to face her lord without even a dress upon her back. No doubt the Chamberlain had found and burned her old livery, or she would gladly change back into the Steward's Squire, if only for an hour—one hour more of certainty and safety.
A firm knock sounded upon the door, and before Gil could call out permission to enter, it swung open. Borlas came in with Boromir, followed by the two halflings bearing heavy trays and candles. Gil watched in awkward confusion as Merry and Pippin carried their burdens over to the table and set them down. Pippin began spreading dishes and cutlery about, accidentally nudging the flower wreath onto the floor in the process.
"Watch what you're about, Pip!" Merry chided, as he rescued the flowers from being trampled by the other halfling. He offered them to Gil with a smile and said, "Put it on again, Gil, please. It makes you look like a queen."
She flinched, lifting a hand as if to ward off the gift. "Nay, Merry."
"Like a lady, then." Gil shook her head firmly, pressing her lips into a hard, disapproving line, and Merry set the wreath on the edge of the nearest tray. His eyes twinkled up at her affectionately. "You've worked yourself into a state, haven't you? Convinced yourself that it's all a ghastly mistake?"
Gil shot a covert glance toward Boromir, who was absorbed in directing Borlas where to set the candles and seemed not to notice her at all. He was attempting to give her breathing room, she knew, to spare her the role of wife and lover in front of her friends, but Gil was having trouble breathing anyway. "Do not mock me, Master Perian, I pray you."
"I am not mocking you. I knew just how I would find you, and I told Boromir it was a mistake to let you come up here alone. You should have stayed at the feast with us, where we could stop you from brooding."
She gave him a mutinous look, and he chuckled. Taking her hand in both of his own, he kissed it, then he pulled her down where he could kiss her cheek.
"I wish you very happy, Gil, and I truly believe you will be. In spite of yourself."
Boromir moved up behind Gil, forestalling her answer to Merry, and placed his hands lightly on her shoulders. "I thank you for your help, Merry," he said, "but the table is laid, your good wishes given, and the hour growing late."
Merry laughed and kissed Gil's hand again before releasing it. "I should wish you happy, too, my friend, but I think that is a waste of breath. So I will bid you good night, instead. Come, Pippin! We are shockingly in the way!"
Gil felt her face harden and her cheeks burn in embarrassment. She muttered an incoherent farewell to the halflings, struggling not to hear their cheerfulness as ribaldry, and kept her eyes firmly on the carpet until their pattering footsteps had faded down the corridor. Only Borlas now remained.
The page stood in the doorway, casting a final look around the room to be certain he had left nothing out of place to trip up Boromir. Satisfied that all was in order, he bowed and said, "Good night, my lord. My lady."
"Good night, Borlas," Boromir said, his firm clasp steadying Gil when she stiffened in alarm at Borlas' form of address. He waited until the page had left, shutting the door behind him, then he bent his head to speak softly in his wife's ear. "Sit down, Gil, and relax. Have something to eat."
"Did we not just leave the King's feast?" She tried to make the question light and teasing, but it came out as a croak."
"Aye, but you did not swallow two bites. You must eat."
"I cannot. The smell of food sickens me." A sudden thought occurred to her, and she turned to look over her shoulder at him. "Is this your revenge, my lord, for all the times I forced you to eat your supper?"
"Nay." Boromir grinned down at her, naught of the lover or the bridegroom in his manner, and Gil felt her trembling ease. He was still her lord and her friend, in spite of the ceremony that had bound them to each other. He could still laugh at her. "But do not tempt me too far. If you call me 'my lord', in that cold way, or bow too meekly to my demands, I may find myself moved to vengeance."
Gil smiled. "What would you have me call you?"
"Boromir is a proud name, and fair enough, I deem, to grace the lips of even so dignified a lady as my Gil."
"Aye." She turned to face him, allowing herself a small degree of pleasure when his hands found her shoulders again. "Too proud and fair for daily use, my lord." Boromir frowned warningly at her. "My… husband," she ventured.
His face warmed, and his fingers slid inward to lightly circle her throat. "That will do for the present."
Gil gazed up into his face, marveling at how close he stood to her and at her own freedom to study him as she liked. The candlelight shone golden upon his features, giving them an unfamiliar cast that unnerved her, and she asked suddenly, "Why are there candles?"
"So that my lady wife will not break her shins on the furniture."
"You need not suffer them, my l—" She broke off and cleared her throat awkwardly, resuming in her gruffest tone, "I know these rooms as well as you and need no lights to guide me through them. I will call for Emrys to take them away."
"Nay, do not." His clasp tightened, drawing her closer to him, and his voice softened. "This is your home now, Gil, and you must feel welcome in it. What is a candle flame, what is a whole bonfire to me, when I have my faithful Gil beside me?"
Swallowing the lump that rose suddenly in her throat, she twisted free of his hands and moved once more to the window. Boromir followed but did not try to touch her again. They both stood quietly, Gil staring out at the firelit night and Boromir fixing his shrouded gaze upon her.
"What troubles you, Gil?" he asked finally.
"I begin to grasp what I… what we have done."
"We have wed."
"Aye." She stared sightlessly at the gleaming lights in the streets below, her face wooden and her body numb with fear.
"Do you repent of it already?"
Gil heard the harsh control in his voice and the pain lurking beneath it. That pain flashed through her own body, setting her to trembling again, and only years of rigid discipline allowed her to hold her voice steady when she answered, "I fear your repentance."
"Gil," he chided, but she cut him off with her dry, hard voice.
"You spoke of me, just now, as if I were a thing of great value. A talisman against evil, a light to you…"
"And so you are."
"Nay, Boromir." It was the first time she had spoken his name without a title before it, and in her distracted state, it fell naturally from her lips. "I am none of those things."
He touched her shoulders, then slid his fingers down her arms to find and clasp her hands. Drawing them up against his breast, he stepped in close to her and said, in a caressing voice that she had never heard from him before, "You are the greatest treasure I own in all Middle-earth. You are my constant star, sent by the Valar to light my steps through any darkness."
"I? A star?" Gil stared up at him in amazement, then let her gaze move down to where he held both her hands so firmly, so possessively in his own. Freeing one hand, she spread it flat against the velvet of his tunic to feel the steady, reassuring beat of his heart. She knew an overwhelming desire to rest her head in that same spot, to listen to the life coursing strongly through her beloved's body.
Boromir must have sensed the longing in her, for before she could withdraw again, he slipped an arm around her back and drew her against him. Gil's forehead touched the soft fabric over his heart and she turned, closing her eyes tightly, to rest her cheek against it. His hand came up to cradle her head, his fingers sinking into her loose hair.
"I will never repent my choice," Boromir murmured, his voice rumbling softly in the cage of bone beneath her ear, "and I will never let you leave me, Gil. These last weeks, when you avoided my company and seemed to go in fear of me, were terrible."
"It was not you I feared, my lord, but my own folly."
A faint chuckle shook him. "You have committed many follies, my girl. Which one had you running from me in terror?"
"That of loving you too well."
"Gil." His voice demanded that she look at him, so she lifted her head to fix her eyes upon his face. His hand moved with her, still cradling her cheek in his palm, and his thumb found the corner of her mouth. "Tell me that you have put that fear, at least, behind you."
"I have."
He smiled, and for a dizzying moment Gil could have sworn that his eyes were smiling at her, as well, through the cloth that shrouded them. The pressure of his hand tilted her head back, even as he bent to find her mouth with his own. At the first touch of his lips, she froze, pierced through the heart by a great shaft of joy and terror. In the next breath she felt his mouth move against hers, his tongue stroke a line of fire along her lower lip, and fear melted into wonder. A liquid warmth flooded her body, dissolving her bones, unstringing her muscles, firing the very blood in her veins. She gave a little gasp of surprise, her lips parting, and suddenly she was drowning in the first real kiss she had ever known.
How long it lasted she did not know. Rational thought deserted her, until the jarring moment when Boromir lifted his head and broke the embrace. He paused with his lips only a finger's breadth from hers. The arm that circled her was like a bar of iron, holding her hard against him, and his breath was hot on her face, but Gil was no longer afraid. She was dazed and breathless, her lips burning with their first taste of passion, her body full of a hot, sweet ache that seemed to cry out for more of him. Driven by that longing, she reached up to clasp his head between her hands, holding him as close as she dared.
"I did not know that stars burned so fiercely," he murmured. "From a distance, they are cold and white, but when I stretch out my hand to touch one, she consumes me."
Gil flushed at that but kept her eyes resolutely on his face. "I will give you anything that is in my power to give, but you must show me what to do."
"I will show you." He smiled, and then he bent to kiss her once more.
This one was hotter and more demanding than the first, and the fire it lit in her seemed to sear her from the inside. She tightened her hold on him, pulled his mouth harder to hers, kissed him with an abandon that would have startled her were she in any state to notice or to care. So lost was she in the pleasure of that kiss, she was caught completely off guard when she felt Boromir's arm come up behind her knees and lift her off her feet.
She gave an undignified squawk of alarm and tore her mouth away from his to protest, "Nay! You must not!"
Boromir took a single lurching step, then, with a grunt of pain, let her feet drop to the floor again. "It seems I must not." He smiled down at the woman still caught close in the circle of his arm and added, wryly, "So much for my grand gesture."
"I do not need grand gestures." Stepping slightly away to break his hold on her, she took his hand with a quiet, "Come," and led him into the inner chamber.
In all her years of service to the Steward, she had never set foot in this room, even in Boromir's absence. She saw it now as a dim space filled with cool shadows, lit only by the ruddy glow from the fires in the city so far below. A familiar row of tall, narrow windows open to the night; a huge bed with its heavy curtains tied back; tapestries covering much of the stone walls where torches or candles had once hung in brackets. That was all the impression she got before Boromir halted at the foot of the bed and turned her to face him.
He stood, his hands now clasping her shoulders gently, his bandaged gaze on her upturned face. "When you kiss me as you just did," he said, his voice low and rough with pent-up longing, "then lead me so calmly into our bedchamber, I could almost believe that you are not afraid."
"I am not," she murmured.
He cocked his head wistfully. "Would you tell me if you were?"
"I will always tell you the truth, my lord."
"My brave, stalwart, stubborn girl." His voice roughened still more. "I have never wanted aught in this life as I want you now, but if it is not the same for you…"
"It is." She took a half-step toward him and felt his hands slide around to the back of her neck, beneath the fall of her hair. "Do not doubt it, and do not be afraid for me." She lifted her own hands to clasp his face and stroke his beard, enjoying the feel of it under her palms. "Please."
"Gil."
The word was a caress. A breath upon her lips. Before that breath had cooled, he stooped to find her mouth with his and, in the same moment, plucked at the tie of her gown. It came open. His hand slid down to find the next tie, and the next, even as she guided him into a deeper kiss with her hands and lips, opening her mouth to his searching tongue, pressing herself against his body, reveling in the taste and feel of him. Not until cool air brushed her back and the fabric of her dress slid off one shoulder did she break the heated embrace, and then only to shrug out of the now-useless garment. Her light shift followed the dress down to puddle on the floor at her feet, and then she was standing, naked, blushing but unashamed, before her husband.
Lifting a hand to rest over his heart, she was gratified to feel it racing. "You must show me what to do," she reminded him.
A wide, adoring smile lit his face, so beautiful that it made her knees go weak with want. "Oh, my darling Gil," he gathered her into his arms, bore her back onto the bed, "it will be my pleasure. The greatest pleasure of my life."
Then he bent to kiss her again, and with the touch of his mouth all Gil's mind, all her senses, were swallowed up in him.
The celebrations in the city had long since burnt themselves out, leaving the night dark and peaceful once more. The noises that drifted through the high tower windows were infinitely familiar, comforting, and so distant that they would not disturb even the lightest slumber, but the Steward of Gondor lay awake and watchful. He felt no need of sleep. In truth, he asked no more than to lie in his wide, warm bed, with his wife sleeping beside him, listening to the stars sing.
Their music was more beautiful than ever on this night of surpassing beauty. Gil's presence did not hinder it or dull Boromir's senses so that he could not hear it. She was a part of the music, a low, rich, human chord that rang beneath the Elvish melody. She gave the song warmth.
Would she be able to hear the song, he wondered, now that she was his? Would the stars sing for her as they did for him? Aragorn did not hear them, nor Faramir, which puzzled Boromir. He could not fathom why he, a soldier with his feet very firmly planted upon the soil of Middle-earth, should be gifted with the ability to hear the stars sing, while men such as Aragorn and Faramir, steeped in the lore of the Eldar, with the blood of ancient kings flowing strongly in their veins, were not.
Perhaps the stars had simply taken pity on him. They saw him crashing about like a Mûmak among the flowers, and condescended to cheer him with a song. A wry smile tilted Boromir's lips at that thought. Somehow, he could not hear pity in the music filling the night. It was easier to believe that the stars were utterly aloof from Men and their cares, that they sang for their own enjoyment, with no thought for the mortal creatures crawling upon the earth so far below. But that brought him back to the question of why he, Boromir, could hear what others could not.
So intent was he upon his musings that he paid no heed to the stirring in the bed beside him, and Gil's voice, speaking suddenly from the darkness, took him by surprise.
"What are you thinking of?"
He turned to smile in her direction. "A bridegroom can give only one answer to such a question."
"You were not thinking of me. I know it by the look on your face." Her fingertip touched his mouth lightly, hesitantly, as if afraid that she was taking liberties. "Tell me what makes you smile just so, my lord."
"Only if you promise not to call me 'my lord' again tonight."
"I promise."
"I was listening to the stars. Do you not hear them?"
She fell still, poised for a long moment, then murmured, "You know I do not." The bed shifted slightly, and her long hair brushed his shoulder as she leaned closer to him. "Is that why you do not sleep? You wish to listen to their song?"
Lifting a hand toward her voice, he found her cheek and cradled it in his open palm. "I do not sleep because I wish to savor every second of this night. The stars' music is only a part of it, and not the most beautiful part, by far." His thumb rested lightly at the corner of her mouth, and he felt it tilt upward. "Why, Gil," he exclaimed softly, laughter in his voice, "when did you learn to smile?"
She snorted, the sound infinitely familiar and welcome to Boromir's ears. "I smile when I have cause, which is seldom enough with you as a master."
"Ah, but I am your master no longer, and I have given you much cause to smile this night. Or am I wrong about that?"
"Nay." She chuckled, and Boromir could not help but marvel at how wondrous that sound was, now that he could feel her face moving beneath his fingers, shaping the laughter, warming with it and warming him as well. "I would not presume to judge my husband wrong in aught he says or does."
"Then if I tell you that you are beautiful, you cannot deny it?"
Her skin heated, betraying her blush. "You would not call me so, if you could see me."
"I believe I would."
Slowly, so as not to startle her, he began to search the contours of her face, running his fingertips along her cheekbone, stroking her brow, tracing the line of her jaw out to her chin and up to her mouth once more. She held herself very still, held her breath, but did not stiffen or withdraw from his touch, and Boromir found himself reveling in this new freedom to explore the face that had eluded him for so long.
He had pictured her many times, always with a slightly different coloring or cast of features, but never with clarity and never with any true expression. Though he often heard amusement, concern or anger in her voice, he could not picture those emotions in her face, and it had always formed in his mind as a kind of mask—ever still and unchanging. To feel it now as a living thing, shifting with her change of expression, heating in response to his touch, filled him with delight and a deeper tenderness than he had known before.
How different it was to love a woman with a face and a form he could hold in his hands, touch, caress, explore until he knew them as intimately as he did the lonely recesses of his own thoughts. No longer a voice with a pair of impersonal hands, she was a whole person, lying in his bed, warm against him, smiling down at him. Smiling. His dour Gil was smiling, and he could feel that smile curve her lips as he drew her down into a long, luxurious kiss.
This was a new and wondrous sensation, as well. Even more precious, if that were possible, than the feel of her face moving beneath his fingertips. The taste of her lips, the heat of her mouth, the small, firm tongue that rose so eagerly to meet his, the little noises she made—unconsciously, he was sure, since a woman as reticent as his Gil would never betray herself with sighs and groans of pleasure if she could help it—when she lost herself in his touch. He had long desired Gil, but he had never imagined that she would come to him so willingly, so hungrily, or that passion would soften her the way it did. She positively melted when he kissed her. And when his lips found other parts of her… he did not have words, even in the privacy of his own mind, sufficient to describe the beauty of it.
When they broke the embrace at last, Gil was lying half atop him, her slight weight a welcome pressure on his chest. As their lips parted, she sighed and let her head fall to rest in the hollow of his shoulder. Hair spilled in a thick, soft mass over his skin, and he reached up to toy with it, enjoying its richness. He had never suspected that she had so much hair—yet one more facet of his Gil that he had never suspected—nor had he ever touched so much as a single strand of it until this night.
"What color is your hair?" he asked, twisting a lock about his finger.
"Black."
"And what of your eyes?"
"Grey."
"Like my mother."
"In truth?" Gil lifted her head to gaze intently at him. "What manner of woman was she?"
He let a picture of his beloved mother form in his mind, blurred now with time and forgetfulness, yet still beautiful beyond the lot of mortal man and colored with sadness. She had died slowly of an unnamed grief, and the youthful Boromir had watched her fade with helpless pain and anger that had left a deep scar upon his heart.
"She was very like my uncle Imrahil," Boromir murmured.
"Prince Imrahil is her brother?"
"Aye. There is Elvish blood in the people of Dol Amroth, it is said. So it seemed to me, when I looked upon my mother. Tall and queenly and beautiful she was, with a black curtain of hair that hung nearly to her knees and eyes the color of storm clouds over the sea. Her heart lay with the sea, and in the end, I deem, she could not live apart from it."
"Mayhap it was her Elvish blood. Do not the Elves love the sea above all else?"
"Some do, I know. Legolas, for one, has never ceased to dream of it from the moment he first heard its music. But others love the trees or the beasts or even the Men of Middle-earth above all else. Lady Arwen will never cross the seas, though she springs from the most ancient and powerful of Elvish bloodlines."
"She loves the Lord Elfstone more than the sea."
"More than the sea, her own life and the love of all her people. She gave up an eternity in the Undying Lands for him."
Gil uttered a soft grunt of satisfaction and said, "That is as it should be."
Boromir smiled and caressed her cheek with his fingertips, feeling again the delight well up in him at her new solidity. "So much sentiment in one so practical? You amaze me, Gil."
She blushed again, drawing a chuckle from Boromir. "You are teasing me."
"Perhaps a little."
Her face heated still more, and she dropped her head, seeming unwilling to meet his shrouded gaze. "I am glad of it. When you treat me with too much care or gentleness, I worry that my friend and master has gone."
"I was never your master, Gil, only your friend, and that I will be until the stars come down to claim you. But I am your husband, as well, and that gives me the right— nay, the duty to treat you with care and gentleness."
"If you must, but only when you must. Too much of it will ruin my happiness."
Boromir laughed aloud at that, and pulled her head down where he could kiss her without disturbing his comfortable position against the pillow. "You are a constant joy to me, wife." He clasped her face between his hands, burying his fingers in her hair, and kissed her again. Then he said, playfully, "Speak again. I wish to feel your face move."
That startled her. He felt her brows lift and her lips part in surprise. She recovered herself quickly and relaxed, a tiny smile twitching at one corner of her mouth. "What would you have me say?"
"It matters naught. Any foolishness will do, so long as it pleases you and makes you smile that way."
"Any foolishness?" He heard a glimmer of laughter in her voice and another, warmer note beneath it that quickened his pulse. "Then I will say that I love my lord husband beyond all the creatures of Middle-earth, the Sundering Seas and the Undying Lands together. Should the stars come down to claim me, I will send them back to the vaults of heaven empty handed, for I will never be parted from him." She hesitated, then added in a roughened voice, "But if you ask me to repeat such folly in the light of day, when I can read your face, I will deny I ever spoke so."
Boromir stroked his thumb over her lower lip and murmured, "You need never repeat it, for having heard it once, I know what lies in your heart and am content."
"I pray to all the Valar that you remain so."
He heard the tremor in her voice and pulled her quickly into his arms. Rolling onto his left side, he gathered her body up against his, tucked her head under his chin, and stroked the hair back from her face. She felt so small and fragile when he held her thus, not like the hard-voiced drudge or the aloof squire of his imaginings. Merry had once described her in her livery as an Elvish boy, but Boromir could find little of the Elf in her and none of the boy.
"Hush, Gil." He dropped a kiss upon her brow, then pulled her in even closer, until he could feel every bone in her body, every inch of her soft flesh clinging to his. "You will drive yourself mad with doubt and fear if you do not learn to accept that I love you. Completely. Unreservedly. For as long as I live."
Gil stirred, freeing one arm from his embrace so she could lift her hand to his face. Her head tilted back, and he felt the warmth of her gaze upon him. "If that is true, will you grant me one favor?"
"One or a thousand. You need only ask."
Her fingertip touched his cheek, just below the bandage that covered his eyes, then it slid up to catch at the lower edge of the fabric. "Let me see your face."
Boromir froze, his very breath suspended by surprise, for a long moment. Then, without uttering a word, he reached up to slip his thumb beneath the bandage just where Gil had touched it. With one deft twitch of his hand he slipped the bandage off and flung it toward the edge of the bed. Cool night air brushed his face, setting his nerves alight, but that caress was only a taste of what was to come.
Before he had time to draw breath, to prepare himself for his wife's reaction to his scarred and brutalized face, he felt her fingers on his skin, tracing the orbit of his eye, finding that most sensitive place where thick, dead scar tissue met living flesh. He gasped aloud, unable to control his reaction to her intimate touch. In answer, she stretched up to press a kiss to one ruined socket.
"What color were they?" she asked in a whisper.
"Green."
"Not like your mother or your brother, then. A color all your own." Her voice turned sad. "But they are gone."
"Aye." He had recovered his breath enough to speak calmly, though his whole body shivered at her continued caresses. "Crushed by an orc blade. But you know this tale, and you have seen my face uncovered before."
"You were not my husband before."
"Scars are scars, Gil, and the ruin of my eyes is hideous, whether I am your husband, your patient, or a beggar on the street."
"I do not find you hideous." She kissed first one eye, then the other, seeming to draw confidence from his willingness to expose this old injury to her. "I find each scar upon your body beautiful in its own way, for each tells a tale, and each tale is a part of the great epic that is Boromir of Gondor."
"Do not turn poet on me, wife," he muttered, both discomfited and aroused by the touch of her lips, her hands, her words.
"Do not hide your scars from me," Gil whispered, even as her kisses grew more heated and her body moved more eagerly in his arms. "Do not wish them away for my sake."
Boromir rolled her abruptly onto her back, too hungry for her to leave control in her inexperienced hands a moment longer. He kissed her hard, pressing her head back into the mattress and drawing a soft cry of welcome from her.
When he moved his lips to the exposed column of her throat, freeing her mouth for a moment, she clutched at him with amazingly strong hands and whispered, fiercely, "Trust me, Boromir!"
"With every part of me," he answered, then he captured her mouth once more and flung himself eagerly into the burning heart of the star that was his Gil.
"Gil?"
She turned at once from the window and came up to the bed. "Here, my lord."
Boromir, only just awakened and looking quite fetchingly rumpled to his wife's doting eyes, gave her a wry smile. "The night is over, then."
"Aye." She took his offered hand, sinking down on the edge of the mattress. "I kept my word."
Boromir sat up and drew on her hand. She obediently leaned into his embrace, finding herself gathered up against him and kissed very thoroughly. In only a night his kisses had become familiar to her, from the way his lips moved on hers to the way his beard scratched softly at her face, and she could tell what he wanted from the flavor of his kiss. He was merely enjoying her now, satisfying himself that she was here and she was his. Gil, vibrating to his touch like a lutestring to that of a master musician, was lost the moment his mouth found hers, and he had reduced her to naught but a limp armful of longing by the time he pulled away.
"I shall have to exact a fresh promise from you, I see," he said, "and I shall have to issue a command about wearing too much clothing in our bedchamber."
"The sun is up," Gil protested weakly, "and I cannot stand at the window, in full view of the city, stark naked."
"Then do not stand at the window," was his practical reply.
She chuckled and snuggled more comfortably into his embrace, thoroughly enjoying this unexpected part of married life. "I wanted to watch the sunrise."
Her gaze dwelt with loving fascination on the familiar face bent over hers, at the wide, relaxed smile it wore, and at the scars that looked more forlorn than dreadful in the new light. She remembered, with a frisson of delight, what she had wrought the last time she had touched those scars, and though she ached to do it again, she dared not. Then it occurred to her that she had no reason to hold herself back. She had every right to touch any part of her husband that she chose, even to seduce him in the most blatant way.
Her hand lifted to caress the perfect spot, just below his right eye, where the skin stretched over the sound, clean curve of bone before it met scar tissue. His smile widened, setting love, desire and an agonizing happiness afire in Gil's blood.
"What did the sunrise show you?" he asked.
"The city looks the same." Amazement sounded plain in her voice.
"What should have changed?"
Gil laughed. "The color of the sun, mayhap?"
"Do that again."
"What?"
"Laugh." Boromir leaned down, laying her on the mattress and settling beside her, his chest pinning her to the bed. "It is by far the loveliest sound I have ever heard."
She obeyed, letting the joy in her bubble up in a merry laugh that filled the room with dancing light. "As my lord wishes."
"Peace, wife. No more talk of lords." He kissed her slowly, lingeringly, and this time there was no mistaking the offer in it. Gil was gasping for breath before he was done. "Will your rigid sense of propriety allow you to couple with your husband in the broad light of day? Or will you tell me it is not seemly?"
"Will the servants not interrupt us?" she asked, demurely.
"They do not come until summoned."
"Then a plague upon propriety."
"Ah, Gil," he sighed, as he stooped to kiss her once more, "you have turned my wits."
Glorious and enlightening as her wedding night had been for Gil, it was an entirely different and shatteringly beautiful thing to give herself to Boromir in the clear morning light. Through the night, she had forgotten herself, let go of Gil all together to become the creature that Boromir loved. But now she had no need to forget and no desire to be aught but herself. She had no words, no frame of reference from which to view or explain that ecstatic hour of her life. Slow and passionate and strangely wanton. A gift of himself that touched her very soul and bound her to him with chains of adamant.
When she lay quietly once more, Boromir's weight pressing her into the bed and his breath warm on her neck, she wanted desperately to weep but found that she could not. The only release for her happiness was to wrap both arms around his body, close her eyes, feel his heart beating strongly in her own breast, and know herself a part of him.
She had drifted into a light sleep—dreaming of her grueling ride to Edoras for some reason that escaped her—but the shift of Boromir's weight as he sat up startled her awake. She reached for him before her mind had caught up with her hands, trying to pull him back down with her. He caught her hands, clasped them in his own, and kissed them quickly before setting them firmly aside and sliding toward the edge of the bed.
"Time to face the day, my girl. We are shockingly late, as Merry would say, and I, for one, need my breakfast."
Gil blinked at him, nonplussed by his suddenly brisk manner. Gone was the lover who had seduced her in the dawn light. If it were not for the fact that he was limping about the room in a state of complete undress, Gil would have doubted that the last day and night had happened at all. But there he was, rummaging through the clothes press, oblivious to his own nakedness, the undraped windows, and Gil's startled eyes upon him. She wanted to laugh, perhaps to blush, then to pull him into the bed and kiss every inch of his smug, smiling face.
Instead, she succumbed to the inevitable and got out of bed.
"What are we late for," she asked, as she pulled on the robe she had worn for her dawn vigil at the window, "besides your breakfast?"
"A tour of our new home."
That stopped Gil cold in her tracks. "Our home?"
"Aye."
"But this is your home, Boromir. It has always been your home. You'll not leave it!"
"I will, and you will come with me, my wife." He ceased wrestling with the ties of his shirt and sat down on the bed, easing his stiff leg out before him. His scarred face turned unerringly to find Gil, and he held out a hand to her. She accepted the hand and sat down beside him.
"Tell me truly, Gil, do you want to live in the Tower, where you are known as the Steward's Squire? Do you want to be served by those who think you their equal, or even beneath them, because of what you were before yesterday?"
"Nay, but…"
"Then let me give you another home, our home, where you will always be mistress and wife, never drudge or squire."
She swallowed the lump in her throat to rasp out, "I cannot take you from this place you know, the rooms you can pace without thought for where you put your feet, the trappings of your youth, your family…"
"You do not take me; I take you, and gladly, for you are my family now."
Gil uttered a small sob and buried her face in his shoulder. "Where will we go?" she asked, in a muffled voice.
"I have asked Aragorn for one of the guest houses along the outer wall, inside the Citadel but apart from the Tower. He gave it me as a wedding gift and set an army of servants to scour the smell of flame from its walls. It needs only your approval."
"Can… can we take this bed?"
Boromir chuckled. "Aye. I will keep these chambers for my use when the press of my duties requires that I stay close to Aragorn and the Council, but all that we value or need for our comfort goes to our new home."
Gil sat back, pondering this new turn of events. Boromir resumed dressing, his fingers sure on fastenings and laces that he now knew well enough to work without seeing. Gil moved more slowly, her face thoughtful. When both were ready, she stood and offered him a hand up. Boromir pulled himself to his feet, using Gil as a brace, then leaned on her shoulder until his leg stopped aching and he could trust it to bear his weight. Gil, accustomed to this process, remained still, glad to provide a prop for him and happy to have him close beside her.
As Boromir found his balance and turned for the door, she caught his arm, saying, "My lord."
He halted and turned his now-bandaged gaze upon her.
"Are you truly content?" she asked, with an urgency that bordered on fierceness.
"I am." He touched her cheek lightly, a wealth of promise in the casual caress. "Never doubt it, my Gil."
She swallowed and squared her shoulders. "Never again."
Without another word, but with a glow of happiness held secretly in her breast—a glow that would warm her for all the years to come without fading—she stepped to her place at Boromir's side, felt his hand clasp her shoulder, and walked with her head high through the doorway with her husband beside her.
To be continued…
Author's Note:
"meleth nîn" is Elvish for "my love."
To those of you who were hoping for some smut, I apologize. I really did try to add a bit, but it just didn't seem appropriate to the style of the story. I did add some… I suppose you could call it proto-smut that spiced up the chapter a bit and vastly improved it (in my view, anyway), but that was as far as I was comfortable going. Anyway, I hope you thoroughly enjoyed Boromir and Gil's wedding night. I certainly enjoyed writing it!
Only one more chapter to go.
Thanks for reading!
— Chevy
