The Strength and Truth of Men by Raiyana

Later, the memory would be fractured, images like paintings stuck in the mind, a gallery of frozen moments in time. 

There, Pippin struggling in the arms of a brutish Orc, kicking and yelling though Boromir could not recall the words. There Merry, slumped and boneless in unconsciousness, tousled curls matted with blood that trickled down from where an armoured fist had split his cheek. He swayed gently, each step taking him further as he hung like a docker’s sack over another grime-coated shoulder, its armour stained with bile and leafmulch. 

Boromir yelled, a sound of grief and fury, staggering another step as he swung, the motion of arm and hand familiar as breathing, thrust, swing, parry, thrust. 

He raised the horn to his lips, once, twice, and then dropped it, his hand numb as another shaft pierced his arm. 

Fury reigned, banishing pain beyond recall, and the Orc fell, Merry with it. 

His leg giving out, knee crashing into leaves. Another arrow. 

The Horn gleaming in a shaft of light, a painting of its own, white horn against the darkness of the enemy’s fist. 

The arc of his sword, so slow and swift as it carves air and flesh. Another scream. 

More arrows, no impact. 

A grin, grimy lips against white, and Boromir’s incandescent fury as the creature guffaws at him. 

The sound reverberates in his soul, every part of his being focused on one thing alone. 

The sword fell. 

The horn falls silent. 

“My pack, Legolas!”

“He’s alive?”

“Barely.” Terse, grim, familiar as the hand that touches his cheek, tilts his chin. 

Boromir splutters, swallowing the drink that is at once clear as water and green as springtime, warm as a winter fire and sweet as a lover’s kiss. 

He coughs, and it is a fire in his breast. 

“Boromir!” 

He blinks. Frowns. Dark hair, drawn features, worry on his brow, but also a light that is less the sun than the stars whirling spinning falling – caught at his throat, glimmering green. He frowns. Are stars green?

“Boromir, listen to me!” 

The hand is harder now, forcing focus, and Boromir blinks, gasps, coughs, feeling blood splatter his chin as he retches, turning his head to let it flow from his mouth, staining the leaves red beneath him. 

“Pippin…?” He scrabbles for his sword, needing to be up, be fighting, protecting the youngest of Frodo’s kin as he cannot protect Frodo. Leaves rustle weakly.

“Not here,” Aragorn says tersely, but his hand has gentled once more, brushing hair away from sweaty temples and guiding Boromir to swallow more of that indescribable drink. “Swallow.” 

Boromir obeys, forcing breath into unwilling lungs. 

“Aragorn,” Legolas somewhere to the side, anxious. 

“Merry,” Boromir manages, the word gaining too many syllables as it rolls around his mouth, leaving his lips as a dreamy sigh. 

“Breathe for me, Boromir.”

The pain is gone, though only in the absence does he realise its presence. Boromir breathes. Then he screams. 

Gimli’s gruff voice floats among his thoughts, the words too unclear to matter. 

“He will live.” Aragorn again. Stubborn. “I command it.” Boromir blinks, finding his face again. “You are Ecthelion’s grandson,” he says, “and you won’t die on me, Boromir, you hear me?” 

Boromir nods. It’s a command he will do his best to obey, issued by a man used to ordering men to his bidding. Boromir almost laughs at the thought; for the first time, Aragorn spoke to him as though he were the King, entitled to make demands of his general, and Boromir wants to laugh though he can’t quite find the breath. “King,” he says, giggling as his eyes close. “Orders.” 

“If it works, Gimli.” Wry, a hint of exasperation, but also a strange fondness and respect. 

Boromir blinks at Aragorn who isn’t looking at him. 

Turning his head takes a year and a day, and the view is not worth it. A whimper, a wish escaped lips too numb to speak. 

“Merry…” 

Merry blinks, soft brown meeting grey, and Boromir knows no more, falling into the arms of unconsciousness like a welcome lover.

”...so if you could wake up soon, that would be nice.” 

Merry’s voice, quiet and subdued, seemed to float through his mind without passing his ears. 

Boromir groaned. The ground beneath him was hard despite the leaves and the bedroll; something seemed to have burrowed up against his spine. 

“Is everything…” he managed, slow and stuttering as each wound and bruise made itself known, flaring into bright agony across his body, “supposed to… hurt?” The thing pressing against his back was the least of it, as it turned out.

“Boromir!” 

“Too… loud.” Boromir tried opening his eyes, wincing at the first sliver of low light and thought better of the endeavour. 

“You’re awake!” Merry said, somehow making a shout of a whisper. 

“Perhaps,” Boromir allowed, wincing at the pounding of his skull. He had rather not expected to, after all, but on balance whatever lay beyond the circles of the world wasn’t supposed to hurt quite this much, he thought, and so he probably had not, in fact, died. 

Evidence to still being somewhat out of it aside. 

He almost laughed at himself, imagining just what old Ioreth might have had to say to such musings, but thought better of that, too. 

“You are… unhurt?” he wheezed, worried as the images playing in his head reached Merry, face bloodied.

“I’m well enough,” Merry said, and if it was a lie it was kindly meant and true enough for the moment, so Boromir said nothing as the memory of Merry’s limp body slung over the shoulder on an orc flashed through his mind. “Aragorn said you would wake, but… it’s been a long time.” 

“The hands of the King…” 

“Huh?” 

“Nothing.” Boromir managed a small shake of his head. “An old saying; my tutor was full of them.” 

“Like old Bilbo?” Merry chuckled. “He had some strange ones - I expect they were dwarven in origin, myself; whoever heard of a Hobbit with a beard, I ask you. But Frodo would say… nevermind.” 

“I…” Boromir said, finding the courage to open his eyes though he did not find the reprobation he expected to see on Merry’s face. 

“He forgave you.” Merry smiled cautiously. “We might not understand your worries or the dire odds of your war, but… he forgave you whatever you did, I’m sure. Frodo was like that. Is…”

“Is.” Boromir would accept no fate in which Frodo was not alive and free, moving ever onwards with his stalwart defender. “Sam went with him, Merry, and that is no small thing.” 

“Even though we are small,” Merry replied, managing a bit of levity and a half smile. 

Boromir nodded. “You are small. But fierce when you have need. I would not discount either of your kinsmen.”

“D’you think… the others left their supplies, do you want something to eat?”

“And now I know my Hobbit friend once more,” Boromir chuckled, regretting the movement of his chest as his ribs became bands of fire to restrict his lungs.

“My mother would call it sensible,” Merry huffed, a grin hiding in his voice. “And you need to regain your strength. And your blood.” 

“You make a most sensible nursemaid, Master Meriadoc,” Boromir said, accepting the offered parcel of lembas. The pain seemed to ebb slightly, confined mostly to his chest and the left arm. Whatever healing had been done was not yet finished mending the worst of the damage, Boromir thought, wondering if that was Elvish medicine - no concoction of old Ioreth’s would have reduced arrow wounds and broken bones to mere bruising in the hours - days? He did not know, but it felt like hours - he had been unconscious. Asleep? 

“Someone has to,” Merry said drily. “And I’ve practise enough taking care of Pippin to sort you out.” His breath hitched on the name. Boromir winced.

“I am sorry,” he said quietly, feeling the weight of failure heavy on his chest. “I would-” 

“You near died, Aragorn said!” Merry protested hotly. “And no friend or fellow could ask more than that! And you… you did save me,” he whispered. “And- and Pippin will be fine once Aragorn finds him - Legolas could hit an orc at three hundred paces, you know, he’ll be fine.” 

Boromir knew the certainty was mostly for show - whatever the orcs wanted with their smallest friend it was unlikely to be altogether unharmful - but he let Merry have the small comfort of it without objection, adding his own silent entreaty to whatever power watched over Hobbits that the young lad would be if not unhurt, at least alive when he was recovered. 

“They have gone in search, then? And Gimli?” Perhaps the Dwarf had decided to follow Frodo and Sam? That would be a comfort - Gimli was a doughty fighter and if Aragorn had decided to pursue their smallest member, Gimli would have been his first choice for protector, too. 

“All three of them,” Merry said. Boromir made a noise of surprise, finally managing to open his packet of lembas. “Aragorn said Frodo had to go alone - they spoke, briefly, it seemed, before your horn alerted them to danger.”

“Oh.” Boromir looked around himself, touching the point on his belt where the horn had hung since he was old enough to carry a sword. “Where is it?” 

“Ah,” Merry paused. “Well, it… the orc, he took it, Legolas said, and blew it again, and so when he was shot, well, they both fell in the water, but the horn,” he babbled, falling silent once more, a moue of distress on his face. 

“My horn?” Boromir prodded, swallowing a bite of lembas that seemed to get stuck in his throat - the horn had been with him for longer than he remembered, a cradle gift from the grandfather he had never known - and somehow the thought of losing it hurt more than his ribs. 

“I don’t know,” Merry admitted in a small voice. “The orc fell into the water, they told me - I didn’t see it myself, of course - though he dropped me first, but when they moved him, well… it’s gone, Boromir.” He swallowed, looking near tears. 

Boromir closed his eyes, taking a deep breath. It was just a horn, after all, a tool to call for aid. But it was more, too, a way to bring hope to struggling soldiers, a tangible proof of home and love and the history he had carved into its curves as he grew. 

“Better the horn than our lives,” he said, tonelessly, and took another bite of the lembas, closing the subject with finality. 

“Éowyn!” 

“Lo-Lord Boromir?” Éowyn exclaimed, turning around to stare at him, her blue eyes wide in her face. “What are you - how are you here?”

“A long story, my lady,” Boromir sighed, leaning on the sturdy stick Merry had found for him to help with his still-sore knee. “I had hopes you might have news of our erstwhile companions?” He put his free hand on Merry’s shoulder. “Allow me to introduce Meriadoc Brandybuck, son of the Master of Buckland in the far-away Shire. Merry, this is Éowyn, Princess of Rohan, daughter of Théodwyn, sister of Théoden the King.” 

Merry bowed politely in the style he had practised as they made their way south, and Éowyn smiled graciously, giving him a nod in return. 

“A story wanting told, I don’t doubt,” Éowyn said. “But perhaps one best told to the King.” 

“And Théodred,” Boromir added quickly. He had dreamt, or thought he had, of the man during his own recuperation; the Elven drink made the memories difficult to catch, glimpses and fractured images fading when he tried to focus, but he felt certain that Théodred had been there, pale hair in the wind and his face set in hard lines.

Éowyn’s face fell. She closed her eyes for a long moment, one hand gripping the other tightly. “Théodred is dead,” she said quietly, allowing him the privacy of keeping her eyes closed so she did not witness that first shock. 

Boromir staggered, Merry’s shoulder beneath his hand the only reason he remained standing. “No!” he cried, even though it was more of a low moan, pain ripping at his heart at the thought that he would never again see his dearest friend; Théoden had always understood him, the letters that sporadically made their way back and forth filled with insight and the support he could not ask from any subordinate. “No.” 

“He… he held the Ford of Isen,” Éowyn said quietly, hugging herself, a tear running down her cheek, though her voice did not waver. “They told us his last words were to leave him there - that he would- would hold them till my brother came.” 

“He…” Boromir closed his eyes, swallowing the sob building in his throat. “He would do that.” The knowledge did not stop him wanting to reach out and shake Théodred by the shoulders, forcing him back to life if only so this pain would cease. 

“I am sorry for your loss,” Éowyn said quietly, unwrapping herself enough to put a hand on Boromir’s arm. “You were close friends.” 

Boromir caught her hand between his, uncaring of the stick that fell over beside him. “I grieve with thee,” he offered formally, the Rohirric phrase thick on his tongue. Théodred always laughed at his accent, teasing him over the rocky shapes of Stoningland tongues trying to match the babbling brook of the Riddermark, an old argument they both enjoyed replaying. 

Éowyn’s fingers trembled in his grasp. “And I with thee,” she replied, bowing her head to accept the kiss on the forehead - familial affection even if they weren’t - he gave her in turn. “I will take you to my Uncle.”

“Mer– Meriadoc Brandybuck!” Boromir exclaimed, grabbing the too-brave Hobbit’s shoulder to stop him running off for the armourmasters. “Please.” He allowed the weariness still clinging to his bones to colour his voice. “Be sensible.” He sighed, closing his eyes; they were small for all that he knew Merry considered himself full-grown, and he could not but be put in mind of young recruits eager to see the field of battle when he looked at him. 

Too many such eager recruits had ended on pyres. 

“I will not be coddled, Boromir!” Merry said, his voice barely missing the mark of a shout. “I may be smaller than you, but-”

Boromir winced. “And I would not,” he swore. “You are braver than many, Merry, and I shall be the first to say it – but it will be a hard ride for Gondor, and you…” Boromir sighed, recognising that stubborn set to Merry’s oft-laughing mouth from the Council of Rivendell. “Someone would need to ride double with you, Merry, and Théoden has no man to spare for the task – nor can I take you.” He tried to portray an image of the warrior he had been less than a sennight before, but Merry of all people knew it to be a falsehood when his breaths still came short with bitten-off moans, and his steps moved slow and careful among the camp, too far from their usual commanding stride. 

“I can ride!” Merry objected, dressed in the small uniform that Boromir had not the heart to tell him had been Théodred’s as a boy, too fine for war, yet almost too plain for the Steward’s table where he had first met the northern prince so long ago. 

A wave of grief threatened to wash him away, but Boromir forced it down, swallowing the bile that always accompanied the image of Théodred’s last stand. 

“I can ride with you, Boromir,” Merry repeated, putting his hand on Boromir’s arm. “Please… The others are all gone – let me follow you, my friend.” 

“No, Merry, I would not have young Pippin fear losing you to another orc-spear,” Boromir said, shaking his head though it hurt almost as much as his still-healing ribs to deny such an earnest request. “I will add my request to Théoden’s command in this: Please, stay with Éowyn and her people, for my sake.” He had no wish to see that, himself, either, he admitted in the privacy of his own mind, no need to see again the grinning Uruk-hai with its crude weapon or feel the fear that he would be too late to save him. “For me, Merry,” he murmured, closing his eyes as he put his hand over Merry’s, squeezing it to feel the life coursing through the small limb. He allowed himself a moment to fix Merry’s kind face in his mind, one more among those he pictured behind him, shielded by the strength of his arms and the breadth of his shoulders. “Please.”

“Be well, my friend.” 

“And you as well, my friend.”

Chapter End Notes

But of course Merry is merely waiting for Dernhelm to swoop in and scoop him up fro the next adventure ;)

He was dressed strangely – his cloak not the deep red of his usual garb, and his armour…. – but no, that was Boromir’s sword, and Boromir’s hand to wield it, his arms to swing it, to cleave his foes, and Imrahil knew him. 

It was Boromir even if it could not be Boromir. 

His nephew had returned in the darkest of hours, at the head of an army they had not dared to hope for. 

“Boromir.” The word left his lips softly, and yet he thought it might have been a shout, for Boromir turned, that face so echoing his mother’s set in grim lines of focus Imrahil knew far too well. 

“Uncle!” 

“It is you.” 

“Should it not be?” Boromir asked, frowning. The cut above his eyebrow kept bleeding sluggishly, making him blink to keep Imrahil in focus. 

“I… only as a spirit, dearest nephew,” Imrahil said, voice hoarse and rough, but then he took two steps and his arms wrapped around Boromir’s shoulders were as warm as they had ever been, holding him tight with strange relief. 

“Uncle?” Boromir asked again, returning the embrace. “Are you well?” 

“Only glad, Boromir, we… Faramir, he - he found your horn, my boy, and dreamt - as I did - of you, pierced by many arrows, falling beneath a white hand on black.” Imrahil swallowed, the hug growing tighter. “You were dead, Boromir. And now you are not.” 

“Only by the hand of one I would call friend,” Boromir replied cautiously. Imrahil was not one for gossip, but still he would tell Denethor of Aragorn’s claim in his own words and his own time. “And the skill of Elvish medicines.”

“I am glad to see you returned to us in this darkest hour,” Imrahil said, releasing him, “but I beg you go now to the Houses of Healing - Faramir has been struck down and I do not know if he will live much longer.” 

Boromir closed his eyes for a moment, steeling himself against a resurgence of grief. “Am I to lose all whom I hold dear upon arrival?” he muttered to himself. “Am I a spectre of death, now, a bringer of ill omens?”

“Perhaps a bringer of good,” Imrahil objected gently. “Faramir… he would fight to return to you, you know this.”

“I will go see him,” Boromir swore, even though the distance between himself and the gate of Minas Tirith might as well be the distance between Rivendell and Mordor to him. 

“Take a horse.” Imrahil patted his shoulder, waving for a mount to be given over. “And all gladness go with you, sister-son, till we meet again.”

The door was open wide, a swift stream of children running to and fro, fetching and carrying, though the Halls themselves had the hush of a sickroom magnified until it was oppressing. 

“Boromir!”

“...Pippin?” Disbelief warred with the evidence of his own eyes, but no. Boromir blinked. There was Pippin, a grin on his face, dressed in the black and silver of the Citadel. “Pippin!”

“You must come,” Pippin urged, grabbing him by the hand, “Faramir is over here. This way.” 

“Not so fast, Pippin,” Boromir begged though he longed to lope across the flagstones. The horse he had ridden to battle had spooked at the sight of the giant mumakil and thrown him wide. The gash across his brow had clotted at last, but the knee he had wrenched in the forest had twisted once again. Taking Pippin’s hand, Boromir limped slowly into the Halls. 

“Boromir!”

“Mithrandir.” Boromir nodded to the wizard - he had never quite trusted the Grey Wanderer, and turning his garb white did not alter the mind beneath the grey hair; Denethor had never trusted Mithrandir, and less so for the tales he told Faramir over the years, and Boromir’s opinion had been coloured long before the Council of Rivendell. “I am told my brother is here - have you news of my father?” 

“Lord Denethor…” Mithrandir paused, and somehow Boromir knew the words that would follow were death. 

He moved past the wizard, taking the seat beside Faramir’s bed, and picked up his cold hand, hoping somehow to shelter himself from more ill tidings by the small comfort of a beloved hand in his own. “Tell me.” He closed his eyes. “Tell me my father’s end.”

It was more horrible than he could have imagined, and Boromir found himself distantly amazed that Faramir did not complain about the strength of his grip even once in the telling. 

“My grief with yours,” Pippin offered quietly beside him, once Mithrandir had fallen blessedly silent. “Hiro hîdh neñ gurth Denethor.”

“Thank you, Pippin,” Boromir said, feeling numb. He squeezed Faramir’s hand. 

“My Lord Steward, we need the bed,” Ioreth said quietly, and the world kept going even though Denethor was dead, and Boromir wanted nothing more than to sleep for a thousand years. She put her hand on his arm in silent comfort, grief writ large across her face as she looked at Faramir. “Perhaps he could still hear you.”

Boromir nodded woodenly, moving aside to let them put another poor soul into the bed behind him, wincing as he put too much weight on his bad knee and submitting to Ioreth’s brand of kindness without much complaint when she noticed. 

And then he found his chair again, and Faramir’s hand, and told him the very long story of all that had come to pass since they had last parted. 

Corsairs who were not corsairs, on ships freed by the dead. Imrahil shook himself. Even the infrequent Sight that ran in his line could not have prepared him for the sight of the dead meting death to the living. He shifted on his horse. What manner of man was this Aragorn who had claimed the forsworn of Isildur? 

Éomer, now King, rode beside him in stern silence, grief for his late uncle and years of worry carved in the lines upon his face. A grim King for a grim time, but perhaps he would stand Rohan in better stead than it had suffered in years before; some hope, there, amid the horror of war around them. The air still echoed with the screams of the dying. 

The Gates loomed before them, broken open to reveal the chaos within. Where was Denethor? Surely Mithrandir’s urgent issue could not have kept the Steward from his duties to his people?

“Behold the Sun setting in a great fire!” Aragorn exclaimed, his face to the west. 

Imrahil, too, saw fire – and smoke, rising from lower and upper levels – but it was little comfort. How many had been lost to the Enemy this day? How many laments would be sung for them until no singers remained? They had won the day, yes, but the strength of Mordor had been barely tested, if Denethor’s spies could be trusted.

“It is a sign of the end and fall of many things, and a change in the tides of the world,” Aragorn continued, giving his words the weight of a crowned ruler. 

Imrahil half expected him to declare himself King in that very moment, stepping into the city as its conqueror. 

“But this City and realm has rested in the charge of the Stewards for many long years,”Aragorn said, “and I fear that if I enter it unbidden, then doubt and debate may arise, which should not be while this war is fought.” 

At least he had some sense; additional turmoil would only weaken them further. Imrahil breathed a light sigh of relief. 

“I will not enter in, nor make any claim, until it be seen whether we or Mordor shall prevail.” Aragorn nodded to himself, waving a hand at one of the grey-clad men who had travelled with him. “We shall pitch tents upon the field, and here I will await the welcome of the Lord of the City.”

Denethor would eat him alive. Imrahil nodded, preparing to enter the city alone; Denethor needed his reports, surely, wherever he was. Beyond the gates, Húrin nodded sombrely at him, a gesture Imrahil returned, pleased to see the apparent good health of his old acquaintance. 

Beside him, Éomer seemed to come awake, staring at Aragorn with a questioning look on his face. “But you have raised the banner of the Kings and displayed the tokens of Elendil’s House,” he said, gesturing at the cloth snapping in the wind that Imrahil had seen so briefly as it was unrolled against the wooden planks of what he now knew to be a ship in Pelargir. “Will you suffer these to be challenged?”

“No,” said Aragorn. For a moment, Imrahil truly wished Denethor had met them at the gate, if only to witness what might have passed between them. “But I deem the time unripe; and I have no mind for strife except with our Enemy and his servants.”

That deserved some reward, at least, even if he could not quite force himself to forget the sight of Pelargir overrun by the dead following in Aragorn’s wake to properly appreciate the fulfilment of the ancient prophecies. “Your words, lord, are wise,” he said, the first he had spoken directly to Aragorn since he was introduced, “if one who is a kinsman of the Lord Denethor may counsel you in this matter.”

Aragorn nodded, and Imrahil felt a light resentment at the implied permission; clearly this would-be King who would suffer no challenger to his rule, already acted as though he had been crowned and enthroned for a score years. 

Just who was this ‘mere Ranger’?

“Denethor is strong-willed and proud, but old; and his mood has been strange since his son was stricken down,” Imrahil continued, hoping that Boromir had made it to Faramir’s bed before the boy expired. Perhaps he might even have found some healing for his own hurts, even if he never had had a mind for himself if others were suffering. So like his mother, that boy. Imrahil shook himself, forcing his attention back to the group lingering at the gate like beggars at the door. The image did not sit well. “I would not have you remain like a beggar at the door.” Denethor would simply have to forgive him – he could put the man up with ease in his own house, had already offered such to Éomer, and old Mistress Derneth would simply have to cope with the influx of visitors. At least Ivriniel had remained in Dol Amroth, safe in her tower as Lothíriel ran the city around her.

“Not a beggar,” said Aragorn. “Say a captain of the Rangers, who are unused to cities and houses of stone.” 

Imrahil frowned, but the banner was already being furled once more, and the Star of the North Kingdom given to the keeping of a pair of Elves so similar they must be twins, something in their faces echoes in Aragorn’s that suggested kinship. 

“Then I offer you my hospitality, Éomer King, and my company to see the Steward and your Uncle,” Imrahil said, nodding once in farewell to Aragorn before they set off, the horses picking their way through the bustle and throngs of people. Imrahil kept a calm look on his face, greeting a few merchants and nobles he recognised in passing, though he merely waved off Duinhir’s offer of a drink, giving him condolences on the death of his sons. The words tasted bitter on his tongue, too aware that Duinhir’s grief was beyond his understanding; both sons lost, and his line ended, while Imrahil had lost none of his children. Denethor would have had words to say, perhaps; he had always possessed the skill, and even if Boromir had returned like a hero out of legend, still Denethor – and the city itself – had believed him dead and the line of Stewards at its end with Faramir dying.

Of course, he mused, feeling a strange twist of humour at the thought, now the line of Stewards would be ended, too, if rather at its triumphant conclusion of its long duty. 

“One more level,” Imrahil said, guiding his horse ever upwards. “Denethor will be in the Hall of the Tower of Ecthelion, and if your Uncle is not there, he will know where his bier has been set.” 

Éomer nodded grimly, his horse following closely, the big grey dancing lightly along the cobbles even though it had to be as tired as its rider. 

“When you have seen him, and given him honour,” Imrahil offered kindly. Éomer looked so young, so lost, and Imrahil could not help but think of what Elphir might have looked like in his stead. He hoped someone would have offered him the same kindness if the situation had been reversed. “I will take you to my house and you may have some hours of rest. There will be a council, certainly, but… it will keep a while.”

The guard at the door opened it swiftly, a bow of respect to Imrahil as they passed, though he did not know to offer Éomer the deference due a visiting King. Imrahil frowned, deciding to ensure that his own servants spread Éomer’s description across the city.

The dais holding the throne and Denethor’s chair was empty, though the hall was not. 

Before the dais, laid to the highest honour, was Théoden on his bed of state. 

“Well met Théoden, King of the Mark,” Imrahil said quietly. “My thanks to thee.”

Torches burned brightly, set around the bed – twelve of them, one for each of the moons in the year, and Imrahil knew the touch of the Senechal on it, recognising a few faces among the twelve guards as those of the Steward’s household, knights sworn to his service. Half of the twelve were in green – he recognised only the one who had spoken when he met the train on the field – and that was as it should be, too. 

Éomer said nothing, though tears glittered on his face as he looked at the calm serenity of the late King; the great cloth of gold drawn up to his breast, hiding his injuries from view. Upon the cloth had been laid his unsheathed sword, and at his feet his shield. Beneath him, the bed carried the green colour of Rohan, as though he lay on a field of grass, the white hangings like clouds upon the summer skies. The light of the torches shimmered in his white hair like sun in the spray of a fountain, but his face was fair and young, save that a peace lay on it beyond the reach of youth; and it seemed that he slept.

“Where is the Steward?” Imrahil asked of nobody, looking at the empty throne and the empty chair beside him. Soon, one would be filled and the other removed; an almost unimaginable sight for one who had never known different. The words broke the calm silence that had come over them as they honoured the fallen King. “And where is Mithrandir?” 

“The Steward of Gondor is in the Houses of Healing.” 

Ah, then he knew that Boromir lived and had gone there, Imrahil thought, with a small smile. He did not recognise the guard who had spoken, but he nodded his thanks to the man. 

Beside him, Éomer stirred, something hard and angry in his eyes. “But where is the Lady Éowyn, my sister; for surely she should be lying beside the king, and in no less honour? Where have they bestowed her?”

Imrahil felt a chill stab of guilt. Had no one told him? “But Lady Éowyn was yet living when they bore her hither. Did you not know? I met them myself and sent her for the Houses of Healing alongside my nephew.”

When he smiled like that, the young King of Rohan was beautiful, Imrahil thought, feeling almost foolish for the notion, though he also felt certain that many a young lady would be vying for the Queen’s Crown if times had not been so very dire. He sighed. Would there be a Queen’s crown to give? He wondered as he followed Éomer’s swift steps out of the Hall and into the starry night outside, filling his lungs with the balmy scent of the blooming courtyard.

“This way,” Imrahil called, when Éomer made to head for the stable where they had left their horses. “The Houses of Healing are on this level.”

As they drew level with the door, they nearly bumped into another pair of visitors. Imrahil stopped to let them precede, but then realised they had found at least part of their quarry. “Mithrandir!” he smiled at the wizard – Denethor might never have liked the man, but Imrahil was of the opinion that it did no harm to offer cordiality at the very least; wizards could be mercurial beings, his old governess had said, telling fantastical tales of years and wars and lands gone by, of dragons and brave knights and cunning wizards. Mithrandir had never quite measured up to those sorts of wizards, dressed in his grey drab robes – the white was rather more suitable, though perhaps not quite so well-suited to the long roads he travelled – but Imrahil was a cautious man. “We seek the Steward,  and men say that he is in this House. Has Faramir worsened greatly?”

“And the Lady Éowyn, where is she?” Éomer added swiftly. “Does my sister live?”

“She lies within and is not dead, but is near death,” Mithrandir admitted, his face grave. “But the Lord Faramir was wounded by an evil dart, as you have heard, and Boromir is now the Steward; for Denethor has departed, and his house is in ashes.”

“Ashes?” Éomer asked, though his face gave away the urge to push the wizard and the worry over Denethor’s death aside and seek his sister within. 

“So victory is shorn of gladness, and it is bitter bought, if both Gondor and Rohan are in one day bereft of their lords,” Imrahil said, closing his eyes and offering a silent prayer for the departed soul of his brother by law. “But Boromir is returned to us, and Éomer rules the Rohirrim. There is yet cause for some hope, I say.”

“Boromir’s wounds are not too grave,” Mithrandir said carefully. “Though he has spoken little of the responsibility of the city.”

“And would Aragorn claim it, now he must not deal with my brother but his own comrade?” Imrahil asked. “For I have seen him before, if under a different name, and Thorongil was one with whom Denethor clashed most fearsomely. Who shall rule the City meanwhile? Shall we send now for Lord Aragorn?” The sarcasm may have been a bit too obvious, but Imrahil had little wish to add to Boromir’s burdens. His father was lost, and his brother may yet be – would he now lose his birthright also?

The cloaked man beside Mithrandir barked a light laugh. “He has come,” he said, “though he did not think you recalled so well the face of Thorongil, Prince Imrahil.” And he moved into the puddle of light cast by the lantern at the door, and revealed his face beneath its grey hood. At his throat, a green stone shimmered, and above it, grey eyes did likewise, though with displeasure or mirth, Imrahil could not say. “I have come because Gandalf begs me to do so,” he said. “But for the present I am but the Captain of the Dúnedain of Arnor; and if Boromir will not, the Lord of Dol Amroth shall rule the City.” 

Imrahil accepted the rebuke silently. Perhaps Aragorn would turn out to know more of their customs than he had expected before recognising his face; he had believed him the son of that old general, and it was strange to think of how little he had changed in the years that had spent Imrahil’s first youth and seen him into middle aged, but carved no new lines in Aragorn’s face. 

“But,” Aragorn continued, and it sounded like an order. “It is my counsel that Gandalf should rule us all in the days to follow and in our dealings with the Enemy.”

Imrahil bowed his head in acceptance of that, too, echoed by Éomer who also seemed to have no real words with which to object, even if Imrahil knew that the idea of handing the rule of Gondor to a wizard would be met wit heaven more scorn and disbelief than the thought of giving it to the King returned. 

“Let us not stay at the door, for the time is urgent,” Mithrandir said. “For it is only in the coming of Aragorn that any hope remains for the sick that lie in the House.” He paused, letting Aragorn precede him. “The hands of the king are the hands of a healer, and so shall the rightful king be known.”

The first person Imrahil saw when they were led to Faramir’s bed was Boromir, silent and still as a statue, only his eyes burning with grief as he stared at his silent brother, one pale hand clutched in his own as though he could lend Faramir some strength if only he held on tight enough. 

“Aragorn,” he said, lifting his head and nodding once in greeting. “Éomer. Uncle.”

Imrahil moved swiftly, rounding the foot of the bed to stand by Boromir’s shoulder. 

“My grief with thee,” Éomer said quietly. 

“Éowyn is over there,” Boromir said, gesturing two beds down. “And poor darling Merry… I asked him not to come…” He turned his head, looking at the small figure in the bed. Imrahil had taken the patient for a little boy, but he could not be; there were tales of persian among the men. “But he was always braver than most. They are discussing whether taking his arm may halt what sickness lies upon him – it is cold as ice to the touch.”

“Here I must put forth all such power and skill as is given to me,’” Aragorn said, bending over Faramir for a moment before moving to Éowyn; Éomer had taken her hand in a mirror of Boromir, poised as though he, too, intended to sit there until his sibling either improved or expired. “Would that Elrond were here,” Aragorn sighed, touching her forehead, “for he is the eldest of all our race, and has the greater power.”

“First you must rest, surely,” Éomer said, though the words cost him, Imrahil was sure. His knuckles had turned white with the strength of his grip. “You are weary, my friend –  at least eat a little?”

“Nay,” Aragorn said, straightening from Merry’s bedside and casting aside his own weariness. “For these three, and most soon for Faramir, time is running out. All speed is needed.” He turned to Ioreth, “You have stores in this House of the herbs of healing?’

“Yes, lord,” she answered; “but not enough, I reckon, for all that will need them. But I am sure I do not know where we shall find more; for all things are amiss in these dreadful days, what with fires and burnings, and the lads that run errands so few, and all the roads blocked. Why, it is days out of count since ever a carrier came in from Lossarnach to the market! But we do our best in this House with what we have, as I am sure your lordship will know.”

“I will judge that when I see,” Aragorn said, looking at the array of remedies that had presumably already been tried. “One thing also is short, time for speech. Have you athelas?”

Imrahil had to admit himself a little impressed at that point. Not many men had courage to stand against Ioreth in her own House. 

“I do not know, I am sure, lord,” she answered curtly, “at least not by that name. I will go and ask the herb-master; he knows all the old names.”

“He needs kingsfoil, Ioreth,” Boromir interjected, looking like he could be persuaded to hope when he looked up from Faramir’s barely moving chest.

’‘Oh that! ‘Well, if your lordship had named it at first I could have told you,” Iroeth said, aiming her words entirely at Boromir. “No, we have none of it, I am sure. Why, I have never heard that it had any great virtue; and indeed I have often said to my sisters when we came upon it growing in the woods: ‘kingsfoil’, I said, ‘’tis a strange name, and I wonder why ’tis called so; for if I were a king, I would have plants more bright in my garden’. Still it smells sweet when bruised, does it not? If sweet is the right word: wholesome, maybe, is nearer.”

“Wholesome verily,” said Aragorn.”‘And now, dame, if you love the Lord Faramir, run as quick as your tongue and get me kingsfoil, if there is a leaf in the City.”

“And if not,” Gandalf said, “I will ride to Lossarnach with Ioreth behind me, and she shall take me to the woods, but not to her sisters. And Shadowfax shall show her the meaning of haste.”

“Bring me hot water in preparation,” Aragorn ordered, taking up Faramir’s free hand and putting one of his own on his brow. It was drenched with sweat; but Faramir did not move or make any sign, and seemed hardly to breathe. “He is nearly spent,” he murmured, looking across the bed to Boromir’s drawn face. “Lend him your strength, Boromir – he will hear you better than he might my voice. Tell him a story.” 

“I have done naught else,” Boromir replied wryly, “but I shall find another tale for him, as ever.” He turned back to Faramir’s pale face. “Do you remember when you were small, and you stole Elphir’s corsair hat, brother?” The story spun out from there, of boyhood squabbles between cousins and neverending summers and the blue waters of Dol Amroth, and Imrahil could almost see the echo of his sister watching over her boys, giving them her love for the sea. She had looked much like Faramir did now before she passed, sun-browned skin turned pale with weariness, dark hair turned lank with sweat and rank with despair. 

“This illness comes not from the wound,” Aragorn said,face turned to Mithrandir as he revealed the wound. It was well on the way to healing, Imrahil could tell. “Had he been smitten by some dart of the Nazgûl, as you thought, he would have died that night. This hurt was given by some Southron arrow, I would guess. Who drew it forth? Was it kept?”

“I drew it forth,” Imrahil replied, “and staunched the wound. But I did not keep the arrow, for we had much to do. It was, as I remember, just such a dart as the Southrons use. Yet I believed that it came from the Shadows above, for else his fever and sickness were not to be understood; since the wound was not deep or vital.” Again, he was struck by the similarity to Finduilas. Then, too, Boromir had sat by the bedside, telling stories of his exploits and mischief in an effort to make his mother smile despite her fatigue. Had the mother’s illness been visited upon the son? “How else do you read the matter?” 

“Weariness, grief for his father’s mood, a wound, and over all the Black Breath,” said Aragorn, raising one finger after the other. “He is a man of staunch will, for already he had come close under the Shadow before ever he rode to battle on the out-walls. Slowly the dark must have crept on him, even as he fought and strove to hold his outpost. Would that I could have been here sooner!”

“You will heal him, Aragorn.” Boromir might never have been born to be a King, but he had always been a commander of men and the words rung with the command of one who would brook no outcome but obedience to his request. Imrahil hid a smile behind his hand. “And I will call him back to me.” A strange added grief lay over the words, and Imrahil wondered if he was not alone in looking at Faramir and seeing Finduilas; Boromir had been more than old enough to remember the sight. He put his hand on his nephews shoulder in silent support. 

Please sister, do not call on your son just yet.

Aragorn did not respond though he bowed his head once in acquiescence.

“He is the King.” Boromir paused his pacing across the flagstones of his father’s study, looking at Imrahil. “He is the King.”

“By blood, perhaps.” 

“By claim and deed, Uncle!” He made an impatient gesture, vaguely in the direction of the Halls of Healing. “The hands of the King – you know it as well as I do!”

“Are you so quick to surrender your birthright?” Imrahil challenged. “Do you know he will be a good King? I know him not – an able commander with a false name,” Imrahil exclaims, even as it sits oddly on the tongue to consider Thorongil their lost-lost King, “and a Ranger of the North now with a frightening legend spreading before him.”

“He… I–”

“The man called upon the dead, Boromir – are you not frightened?” Imrahil shivered. “Because I am. I saw it, you know, in my dreams, and the tales I have heard since have not settled my heart. How could any man hope to stand against such power if it turned on us?”

“Aragorn would not, Uncle. I…” Boromir sighed, moving to the single window and pushing aside the shutters.

“How do you know?” Imrahil asks, his voice soft as it ever was when Boromir was a child and asked him to explain something in his books – an entreaty often met by thoughtful questions rather than straightforward answers. “The Line of Kings was ended,” he sighed. “Should we let it be reborn in a warlord with little to tie him to our people, our lands?” 

“Has he not history with us?” Boromir asked. He looked out across the White City, seeing her battered and bruised, touched by the darkness that he has always known looming on the horizon. “You do not deny he was of us, in disguise perhaps, but is that not a better way to learn our country – my own grandfather raised him to a general, surely he saw some merit in the man that would not diminish with mere time.”

“You have travelled with him, Boromir.” Imrahil said. “Tell me he will not turn on us, destroy what his ancestors and ours built.” Aragorn had been as gracious as he might have hoped for, if not as friendly as might have been desired, and yet… Imrahil was wary.

“He will not,” Boromir promised. “He is… Uncle, I believe him to be a good man.”

“But you are not his friend, as the Elf is, or the Dwarf – your brother’s affection I ascribe to his healing,” Imrahil listed. “And so you must understand my caution, Boromir, as one among those who would owe him loyalty. He has made friends of Elves and Wizards and other strange folk, yet not of you, chief among the sons of Gondor.” 

“Because I did not let him – or myself!” Boromir exclaimed. If the Ring had not… perhaps they could have been true friends in time. In his breast, Boromir’s heart was disquiet, grief tearing at the softness of him, wanting a vengeance he could not truly claim. The Ring had gone with Frodo, as it was destined – the thought shaped a wry smile of his mouth – to do, and he had come home to his White City on the eve of war, carrying aid – if not in the shape he had expected. 

A King returned, a Steward perished to despair and flames, and Faramir… How easily he, too, could have been lost. 

And now Boromir must stand, must be the bulwark he was ever famed as, even as his footing is shaky with grief, his foundation crumbled and burnt away by the pyre.

Leaning on the stone sill, he looked out across the stone roofs, shattered tiles catching his eyes here and there; Minas Tirith wounded yet not defeated. 

Because of Aragorn. 

“I was angry,” he admitted quietly. “Angry and suspicious – it was ever my birthright to rule, Uncle, as you said yourself.” He chuckled. “And there I was, sent on a dreamchase when I wanted only to be home, and there he was, this man who would claim all that I wanted for his own simply for being born.” 

He swallowed hard, remembering that long-ago meeting. Always, there was a touch of legend on the quest he undertook, something out of the tales of old, and yet Boromir had believed that it might be a different sort of story he had found himself in when he accepted the quest of his brother’s dark visions. 

He had never believed that the light of Faramir’s dreams might be a new King of Gondor. 

“And he refused to put the people he would claim to rule before anyone else,” he added, “and I did not understand him. How could he think of them,” he said, gesturing towards the city, its people moving about their day, “and count them as naught of his own to care for or tend, yet still expect to be handed Kingship if he but asked.” He turned back to Imrahil, accepting a goblet of chilled wine with a nod. “I am uneasy,” he decides, “handing all power to a stranger – but we could not now stand against Aragorn, either, if that was my desire.” 

“A stranger, still?” Imrahil asked carefully. His eyes saw as clearly as Denethor’s ever did, even though they echoed the gaze of Finduilas as they bored into Boromir’s soul, snatching at the truth of his heart to bring it into the light. Imrahil and his favourite sister both had the talent of seeing to the heart of the matter, and Boromir swallowed a sudden longing for the gentle voice of his mother. Finduilas would have known what he should do, 

“Not wholly,” Boromir admitted. “I know his mettle in battle; his ability to inspire devotion in those he commands is unquestionable.” He even admired Aragorn’s character to a point, and yet Boromir could not help but wish he could put it off – wishing Denethor could have made this choice for him, could have seen through all pretence and avarice as he ever did before. 

“Thorongil had that skill,” Imrahil nodded, leaning against the wall next to the window; the stern dignity of the Prince softened by the appearance of Uncle Imrahil in his posture. “Men wanted to follow him,” he added, pausing slightly, those eyes piercing Boromir’s soul again, “just as they want to follow you.” He smiled, revealing a sudden similarity with Amrothos; the charm the youngest prince of Dol Amroth wielded recklessly clearly not all due to his mother.

“As we journeyed, I saw him clearer – and the merit my grandfather saw still shines in him, tempered, perhaps, by wisdom and age, but no less bright.” Boromir sipped thoughtfully. “Perhaps we may one day be called friends. I… I would follow him, as my commander – should I not then follow him as my King?”

“All the way to the Black Gates, then?” Imrahil asked, raising his own goblet in a toast. 

“And beyond,” Boromir replied, choosing to believe in the name Aragorn had first given him. 

Estel.