LOTR Fic: Lady of Gondor Ch 24`
Jun. 12th, 2007 11:13 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
martasficTitle: The Lady of Gondor Ch 24
Summary: The deeds of Mellamir, sister of Boromir and Faramir, before and during the War of the Ring. Novel-length.
Word Count: 3190
Rating: Teen (for violence)
Timeline: Mid-Third Age and Late Third Age (bookverse)
------
It was a cheerful spring morning in Lebennim. The birds were singing for the first time in weeks. The great eagles of the mountains had flown overhead a few hours before, bringing the news from the field in front of the Black Gate: Sauron was defeated, his ring was destroyed, and the ringbearer and his companion were safe at the Fields of Cormallen, where they were being cared for by none other than King Elessar, returned from exile in the north, whom his friends called Aragorn.
But the birds (which were about all that was left in this land, the men having ridden forth with Aragorn to war and the women and children having taken refuge in the mountains to the north) stopped their song for a moment when the ground seemed to open up. Out came a single girl -- nay, a woman -- on a jet black horse. Her auburn hair was streaming in the wind, but that was the only part of her that seemed care-free. She was in a hurry, that was plain to see, and she was worried. She rode off straight for Minas Tirith, and the creatures of the field soon forgot her.
It was just over a month ago that the horsemen had come riding through, up out of the ground. Thirty men and two elves all cloaked in gray, and another man, an elf, and a dwarf, cloaked in what appeared to be green, but one could never be quite sure since sometimes the colour seemed to change. Before that, none of the creatures could remember anyone ever having come from that path; neither could the old wives of the land, judging from the talk the milk-cows had overheard, and these women were good with remembering and mentioning bits of old gossip. But the riding of the thirty-five, as incredible as it was, was nothing compared to the sense of fear that rode with them. A strange wind blew all around those cloaked riders, and it seemed as if there should be thousands riding, not less than forty. But the fear passed, and the creatures slept, and they had almost forgotten about the whole incident.
Then the girl rode past. The groundhog ran to his friend the fox and asked him what he thought of it. "She is one woman," he said, "and she means us no harm. Where is the wind, and the thousands? They are gone, away to the east. What does this girl have to do with them?" So the rider rode out of sight, and the groundhog returned to his hole.
Mellamir made her way across the plains until at last she could see the White City, gleaming in the morning sun. But as she got closer she realized it wasn't the city she had grown up in. Its iron gates were thrown down, their frames bent. She dismounted and let her horse wander in search of pasture, and made her way along the main road, climbing over piles of rubble that blocked the road in places. Never before had the road to the Seventh Circle seemed so long! But at last she passed through that final gate and made her way across the courtyard to the Houses of Healing. She walked into the garden between the houses, looking through the windows to try and find her friends.
At last she found Merry. She knew it was him because she could see his feet under the blanket only 2/3 of the way down the bed. She saw his brown curly hair (his face being turned away from the window) and his arm in a sling on top of the velvet cover. "Merry!" she hissed through the window.
The hobbit turned over and she saw that it certainly was Merry, but not the Merry she remembered. He smiled at the sight of a familiar face, but weakly, and she saw the lines around his eyes; his merry dimples were gone, and as she bended through the window to get a better look the hobbit gave a cough and gasped for air. A nurse rushed in to see what the matter was and saw the woman at the window.
"Now you just get out of there!" the nurse shouted. "Get out of that garden. It's not for the likes of you, you can be sure, all covered in mud and all!"
"Ioreth?" Mellamir asked incredulously. "Is that you? You still breathe?"
"Ioreth is my name, sure enough, but what yours is I haven't a guess."
"I suppose I do look different than when you last saw me," Mellamir replied. "Fair enough. Correct me where I am wrong, lady of healing, and hold your tongue otherwise if you can. The steward Denethor is dead, burned on his own pyre. And his son Faramir is now steward in name only, being sick in this house." The nurse nodded, surprised that an apparent stranger knew so much of her business. "Then who is acting as steward now?"
"Lailagonde, who used to be Captain of the Guard," Ioreth answered.
"Aye, I remember him," Mellamir replied. "Both of my brothers trained under him."
"Then you are Gondorian?" the lady of healing asked, a sceptical look on her face.
"Yes," Mellamir answered, "and more than that: I am a Númenorean. I am the one remaining blood-child of the late steward Faramir. I have been to Fangorn and to Rohan, and for the last few weeks have been shepherding Théoden's people in Dunharrow, at the request of the lady Éowyn -- who I believe you also have here. But you know me best as the little girl who survived the river south of the Pelennor, who was born Mellawen to be renamed Mellamir." At this Iorent was struck dumb, quite a feat for someone who loved to wag her tongue as much as the old lady did. But Mellamir continued. "I am the last of the House of the Steward. My mother and the steward's brother Arabôr, whom some called Calithor, died years ago." She fought a tear, but pressed on. "My brother Boromir died at Amon Hen protecting this very halfling; my father Denethor is dead, as I have already said, and my other brother Faramir is still recuperating, unless I am much mistaken?" Ioreth nodded. "Then I take on myself the role of steward of the Stewardship until my brother is well enough to assume his stewardcy himself."
"Now, Miss Mellawen -- Mellamir, pardon me -- you can't go doing that. You know you've got to be a man to --"
But Mellamir cut her off. "Feel free to take it up with the Steward, if you so wish."
She hurried from the window and a moment later came through the doorway into the room. She folded back the blanket and looked at the hobbit. He was wearing a silk tunic, linen britches, and a sort of bootlet, velvet with leather bottoms and silk lining, like the sons of Gondor's nobility wore in the evening before they went to bed.
"My first order, then, as steward of the Stewardship of Gondor, Master Meriadoc," she said with a smile, "is for you to get out of that ridiculous outfit. Don't tell me they have made you a dandy. Out! Out of that bed. Off with the shoes, and change into the clothes that were good enough for you all the way from the Shire. Don't bother with shoes; your feet don't need them, and it'll do you good to feel the soil between your toes. I will go out into the hall, to satisfy your infamous sense of modesty; come out when you're ready."
She led Ioreth out of the room, then sent her to the cook-house to make up lunch bundles for the two of them. Half an hour later Merry and Mellamir were making their way back down through the city. Finally they passed the Great Wall, making their way towards the very tree where Gandalf and a young Mellawen used to smoke so long ago.
Mellamir set out the blanket she had brought with her, then left to fetch some water from a nearby spring. When she returned Merry held two pipes, one in his mouth and the other in his hand. Mellamir took the second pipe and leaned back against the tree. "You can't smoke nad eat at the same time, you know," she said after a moment. "Aren't you hungry?"
"Hungry, yes, but not for food," he answered in a raspy voice. "Hungry for information. Explanation. And I can't talk without smoking. Conversations make me weary somehow, and smoking gives me strength. Not sure why."
Mellamir was silent a minute, sniffing the air. Then she took the leather pouch where Merry kept his weed, opened it up, and brought out a dried green leaf. She put it in her mouth and swished it around, then spat it out into her handkerchief. "Athelas," she said at last. "Aragorn has mixed athelas in with your weed! But I love him for it. Wise man, he knew you might not get it any other way."
"But I've been a model patient!" Merry protested. "Ioreth said so herself.
"I wouldn't trust Ioreth to heal my pet rock, to say nothing of a creature as foreign to Gondor as you, Master Hobbit," Mellamir replied. "Don't get me wrong, she is a sincere woman, but a bit of a bumbler, would you not agree?"
"Yes, I suppose so . . ."
They both sat in silence for a while until Mellamir finally asked, "What's wrong, Merry?"
"Oh, I don't know," he replied. "It seems I should be better by now. But this arm ..." Then something in him snapped. The pipe fell from his mouth, spilling its ashes on the mossy ground beside them. He started sobbing, and it was a few minutes before Mellamir could calm him. She emptied her cup of water over the ashes, then took hold of Merry's shoulders and sat him in her lap, rocking him back and forth. Finally he said between hiccupy breaths, "Mella -- Mellamir -- it was -- it was awful. Wha-what -- what was he?"
"You should know a bit of that, Merry," she answered. "You know of the Nine Kings of Men, don't you, and how they fell? And you, you and Éowyn, killed their leader." She shook her head in disbelief. "I still wonder at it. The Witch King of Angmar we call him in our legends, though he has many names. Let me explain it this way: you have travelled with Aragorn all the way from Breeland, have seen him handle many adventures. And I admire and respect him greatly. Yet he is no match for this Witch King. The Witch King can control when the frost comes, yet Aragorn's toes froze at Caradhras with yours. And men who see one of the Nine, they freeze -- my brothers froze, and they and only two other men out of their entire company survived when they first encountered one -- yet Aragorn and Éomer fought back the Easterlings, and almost lost.
"But you, Merry -- you beat him. I don't know what possessed Éowyn to fight him; she knew what she was facing; I suppose it was madness at Théoden's death. And nothing but love of her could have drawn you to her side. Why, if it weren't for your bravery --"
"I'm not brave," he interrupted.
"Not brave?" Mellamir questioned. "Of course you are."
"Éowyn, she was brave," Merry answered, "but me? I didn't know what I was facing. All this you've said just now, I had never heard it before."
"But you had heard enough. They were so much stronger than you are, I don't think knowing exactly how strong would have really mattered. It was passion that killed them, Merry. Éowyn's love for her uncle, your love for her, and the old Northern kings who wove spells into your blade, their hate for everything evil, most of all the Witch King."
Mellamir took a linen napkin from the blanket and used it to wipe away Merry's tears. "Do you understand now?"
"No," he said. "But I think I'm beginning to." He smiled, and the wrinkles around his eyes began to fade away. Then he looked down at his own pipe, the fire put out by the water Mellamir had poured on it, but instead of reaching for his flint-box he laid the pipe down and looked across the blanket. "My word, are those mushrooms ...!" he cried at last, and Mellamir leaned back against the tree. Merry, however, was busy crawling across the blanket towards the basket piled high.
-------
Mellamir and Merry had been too busy to notice that they weren't the only ones enjoying the fine weather that afternoon. If they would have looked back toward the city they would have seen, through the gaping torn-down places in the wall, Éowyn and Faramir walking through the fields of Pelennor.
"Do you know what I've always wanted, Éowyn?" Faramir asked, stooping down and sifting some of the rich black soil through his fingers. "A garden, right here in the city."
"A garden!" Éowyn said in surprise. "Why, what put that idea in your head?"
"You didn't know?" he asked. "I grew up on one."
"No!"
"Yes. For the first twelve years of my life. You see, I'm only Denethor's adopted son; we're really his nephews, Boromir and I, and we grew up on a farm not far south of the Pelennor." He sighed contentedly. "Wonderful land. Mellamir was there for about six months before --" He stopped short, looking into Éowyn's eyes, then continued. "Mellamir, though we called her Mellawen back then, and her mother Finduilas came out to our farm one March. I was twelve at the time. You see, Mellawen had a cough, and the healers ordered fresh country air. We had plenty of that. Finduilas planted a small garden, a flower garden, and Mellawen and I, we worked in it all that summer. I think that was probably the happiest time of my life. Then that September they both died, my father Arabôr and Finduilas, in a flood. And I caused it. It was all my fault." A tear rolled down his cheek, but he ignored it and looked up at the rich blue mantle Éowyn wore. He rubbed his clean hand against its fur hem.
"Éowyn, this mantle, it belonged to my mother. Ivriniel, Finduilas's sister. She died when I was three months old, was killed by an orc. I never saw her wear it, but I can't imagine that she looked half as beautiful as you do now."
"So much pain," she sighed.
"Yes," Faramir replied, "it was a long time ago, but sometimes at night I still hear them: the orc who broke my mother's neck, and that horrible flood that swept away my father and the woman who had become a mother to me."
"Look not to the shield-maid for healing, my lord!" she laughed bitterly. "I am sorry, but my hands are rough, too accustomed to gripping the sword-hilt to be much use at anything else."
"To all but one," Faramir said quietly.
"To all but one," she repeated to herself.
"And I'm not the one." Éowyn turned away, starting to leave, but Faramir grabbed her arm. "No, don't go, Éowyn. I know that you love Aragorn, and rightly so! He is a great man and worthy of homage. So when you saw that you loved him but he only loved that elf-maid, you swore that you would have no other master, except perhaps death: death in battle, if you could. You have hurt at least as much as I have. You have lost your own parents, as well as your uncle who you saw as a father. And more than that, you have lost the one true love of your heart." He paused. "Éowyn, I match you in all those pains, save for one. I have not yet lost the one I love, but I fear I might. I love you, Éowyn."
"Pity, you mean."
"No, love," he answered. "I pitied you at first, yes, but not any more. If you were as vibrant as you once were -- yes, I see the dance in your eyes -- and I had no reason to pity you, still I am sure that I would love you. Éowyn, won't you let me heal you?"
"How?" she asked sceptically.
"It's amazing the effect of a garden, Éowyn," Faramir answered. "Minas Tirith could use one. See, the land is free, and we do not have to hide inside this wall anymore. Let the farmers move to the outlying fields, and let us make this into a garden, with trees, and bushes, and flowers, and vines, and benches, and fountains, and statues, and paths going every which way. And let it be open to all who would come, from the milliner's son to my very own. And let there be one like it in Edoras, Lady Éowyn. And let us -- let us build them together. Then we can build our own tiny garden, far away from the world."
"Oh, Faramir," Éowyn replied, "you're not a gardener, you're a -- a king! And I am rough. I could never be a queen."
"Well, that's good, fair lady, because I have no a kingdom to offer you. All I want, and all I can hope for now that the king will soon return, is a little patch of land somewhere, my own, and a cheerful lady to tend it with me."
Éowyn smiled and looked down at the soil. "If a garden is half you seem to think it is," she replied, "then no kingdom on earth could compare."
-------
At that very hour a messenger from Ithilien rode up and, seeing Faramir lord of Gondor in the garden, rode over there. He stopped, however, for as he got closer he recognized the resemblance between the lady sitting under the tree and Faramir and, remembering Lord Éomer's description, realized this had to be the lady Mellamir, which meant the child beside her was not a child but the halfling he sought. So he dismounted, bowed, and handed Merry a letter from Éomer. Pippin was much better after nearly being crushed under a troll, and Frodo and Sam should be waking up any day. Éomer, though, missed the cheerful hobbit and wanted his page to hold his cup. He was to come as fast as he could and not worry about anything but his cloak and his pipe-weed; the rest would be provided for him in Ithilien.
Mellamir ran back to the city gate to tell the guard that Lailagonde would have to take back the keys to the city until Faramir was ready to claim them, gathered her own horse and the one it had been grazing near, and rode back to the tree. The messenger put Merry on Mellamir's horse before mounting the spare, and they rode off together into the east, toward Ithilien.
Summary: The deeds of Mellamir, sister of Boromir and Faramir, before and during the War of the Ring. Novel-length.
Word Count: 3190
Rating: Teen (for violence)
Timeline: Mid-Third Age and Late Third Age (bookverse)
------
It was a cheerful spring morning in Lebennim. The birds were singing for the first time in weeks. The great eagles of the mountains had flown overhead a few hours before, bringing the news from the field in front of the Black Gate: Sauron was defeated, his ring was destroyed, and the ringbearer and his companion were safe at the Fields of Cormallen, where they were being cared for by none other than King Elessar, returned from exile in the north, whom his friends called Aragorn.
But the birds (which were about all that was left in this land, the men having ridden forth with Aragorn to war and the women and children having taken refuge in the mountains to the north) stopped their song for a moment when the ground seemed to open up. Out came a single girl -- nay, a woman -- on a jet black horse. Her auburn hair was streaming in the wind, but that was the only part of her that seemed care-free. She was in a hurry, that was plain to see, and she was worried. She rode off straight for Minas Tirith, and the creatures of the field soon forgot her.
It was just over a month ago that the horsemen had come riding through, up out of the ground. Thirty men and two elves all cloaked in gray, and another man, an elf, and a dwarf, cloaked in what appeared to be green, but one could never be quite sure since sometimes the colour seemed to change. Before that, none of the creatures could remember anyone ever having come from that path; neither could the old wives of the land, judging from the talk the milk-cows had overheard, and these women were good with remembering and mentioning bits of old gossip. But the riding of the thirty-five, as incredible as it was, was nothing compared to the sense of fear that rode with them. A strange wind blew all around those cloaked riders, and it seemed as if there should be thousands riding, not less than forty. But the fear passed, and the creatures slept, and they had almost forgotten about the whole incident.
Then the girl rode past. The groundhog ran to his friend the fox and asked him what he thought of it. "She is one woman," he said, "and she means us no harm. Where is the wind, and the thousands? They are gone, away to the east. What does this girl have to do with them?" So the rider rode out of sight, and the groundhog returned to his hole.
Mellamir made her way across the plains until at last she could see the White City, gleaming in the morning sun. But as she got closer she realized it wasn't the city she had grown up in. Its iron gates were thrown down, their frames bent. She dismounted and let her horse wander in search of pasture, and made her way along the main road, climbing over piles of rubble that blocked the road in places. Never before had the road to the Seventh Circle seemed so long! But at last she passed through that final gate and made her way across the courtyard to the Houses of Healing. She walked into the garden between the houses, looking through the windows to try and find her friends.
At last she found Merry. She knew it was him because she could see his feet under the blanket only 2/3 of the way down the bed. She saw his brown curly hair (his face being turned away from the window) and his arm in a sling on top of the velvet cover. "Merry!" she hissed through the window.
The hobbit turned over and she saw that it certainly was Merry, but not the Merry she remembered. He smiled at the sight of a familiar face, but weakly, and she saw the lines around his eyes; his merry dimples were gone, and as she bended through the window to get a better look the hobbit gave a cough and gasped for air. A nurse rushed in to see what the matter was and saw the woman at the window.
"Now you just get out of there!" the nurse shouted. "Get out of that garden. It's not for the likes of you, you can be sure, all covered in mud and all!"
"Ioreth?" Mellamir asked incredulously. "Is that you? You still breathe?"
"Ioreth is my name, sure enough, but what yours is I haven't a guess."
"I suppose I do look different than when you last saw me," Mellamir replied. "Fair enough. Correct me where I am wrong, lady of healing, and hold your tongue otherwise if you can. The steward Denethor is dead, burned on his own pyre. And his son Faramir is now steward in name only, being sick in this house." The nurse nodded, surprised that an apparent stranger knew so much of her business. "Then who is acting as steward now?"
"Lailagonde, who used to be Captain of the Guard," Ioreth answered.
"Aye, I remember him," Mellamir replied. "Both of my brothers trained under him."
"Then you are Gondorian?" the lady of healing asked, a sceptical look on her face.
"Yes," Mellamir answered, "and more than that: I am a Númenorean. I am the one remaining blood-child of the late steward Faramir. I have been to Fangorn and to Rohan, and for the last few weeks have been shepherding Théoden's people in Dunharrow, at the request of the lady Éowyn -- who I believe you also have here. But you know me best as the little girl who survived the river south of the Pelennor, who was born Mellawen to be renamed Mellamir." At this Iorent was struck dumb, quite a feat for someone who loved to wag her tongue as much as the old lady did. But Mellamir continued. "I am the last of the House of the Steward. My mother and the steward's brother Arabôr, whom some called Calithor, died years ago." She fought a tear, but pressed on. "My brother Boromir died at Amon Hen protecting this very halfling; my father Denethor is dead, as I have already said, and my other brother Faramir is still recuperating, unless I am much mistaken?" Ioreth nodded. "Then I take on myself the role of steward of the Stewardship until my brother is well enough to assume his stewardcy himself."
"Now, Miss Mellawen -- Mellamir, pardon me -- you can't go doing that. You know you've got to be a man to --"
But Mellamir cut her off. "Feel free to take it up with the Steward, if you so wish."
She hurried from the window and a moment later came through the doorway into the room. She folded back the blanket and looked at the hobbit. He was wearing a silk tunic, linen britches, and a sort of bootlet, velvet with leather bottoms and silk lining, like the sons of Gondor's nobility wore in the evening before they went to bed.
"My first order, then, as steward of the Stewardship of Gondor, Master Meriadoc," she said with a smile, "is for you to get out of that ridiculous outfit. Don't tell me they have made you a dandy. Out! Out of that bed. Off with the shoes, and change into the clothes that were good enough for you all the way from the Shire. Don't bother with shoes; your feet don't need them, and it'll do you good to feel the soil between your toes. I will go out into the hall, to satisfy your infamous sense of modesty; come out when you're ready."
She led Ioreth out of the room, then sent her to the cook-house to make up lunch bundles for the two of them. Half an hour later Merry and Mellamir were making their way back down through the city. Finally they passed the Great Wall, making their way towards the very tree where Gandalf and a young Mellawen used to smoke so long ago.
Mellamir set out the blanket she had brought with her, then left to fetch some water from a nearby spring. When she returned Merry held two pipes, one in his mouth and the other in his hand. Mellamir took the second pipe and leaned back against the tree. "You can't smoke nad eat at the same time, you know," she said after a moment. "Aren't you hungry?"
"Hungry, yes, but not for food," he answered in a raspy voice. "Hungry for information. Explanation. And I can't talk without smoking. Conversations make me weary somehow, and smoking gives me strength. Not sure why."
Mellamir was silent a minute, sniffing the air. Then she took the leather pouch where Merry kept his weed, opened it up, and brought out a dried green leaf. She put it in her mouth and swished it around, then spat it out into her handkerchief. "Athelas," she said at last. "Aragorn has mixed athelas in with your weed! But I love him for it. Wise man, he knew you might not get it any other way."
"But I've been a model patient!" Merry protested. "Ioreth said so herself.
"I wouldn't trust Ioreth to heal my pet rock, to say nothing of a creature as foreign to Gondor as you, Master Hobbit," Mellamir replied. "Don't get me wrong, she is a sincere woman, but a bit of a bumbler, would you not agree?"
"Yes, I suppose so . . ."
They both sat in silence for a while until Mellamir finally asked, "What's wrong, Merry?"
"Oh, I don't know," he replied. "It seems I should be better by now. But this arm ..." Then something in him snapped. The pipe fell from his mouth, spilling its ashes on the mossy ground beside them. He started sobbing, and it was a few minutes before Mellamir could calm him. She emptied her cup of water over the ashes, then took hold of Merry's shoulders and sat him in her lap, rocking him back and forth. Finally he said between hiccupy breaths, "Mella -- Mellamir -- it was -- it was awful. Wha-what -- what was he?"
"You should know a bit of that, Merry," she answered. "You know of the Nine Kings of Men, don't you, and how they fell? And you, you and Éowyn, killed their leader." She shook her head in disbelief. "I still wonder at it. The Witch King of Angmar we call him in our legends, though he has many names. Let me explain it this way: you have travelled with Aragorn all the way from Breeland, have seen him handle many adventures. And I admire and respect him greatly. Yet he is no match for this Witch King. The Witch King can control when the frost comes, yet Aragorn's toes froze at Caradhras with yours. And men who see one of the Nine, they freeze -- my brothers froze, and they and only two other men out of their entire company survived when they first encountered one -- yet Aragorn and Éomer fought back the Easterlings, and almost lost.
"But you, Merry -- you beat him. I don't know what possessed Éowyn to fight him; she knew what she was facing; I suppose it was madness at Théoden's death. And nothing but love of her could have drawn you to her side. Why, if it weren't for your bravery --"
"I'm not brave," he interrupted.
"Not brave?" Mellamir questioned. "Of course you are."
"Éowyn, she was brave," Merry answered, "but me? I didn't know what I was facing. All this you've said just now, I had never heard it before."
"But you had heard enough. They were so much stronger than you are, I don't think knowing exactly how strong would have really mattered. It was passion that killed them, Merry. Éowyn's love for her uncle, your love for her, and the old Northern kings who wove spells into your blade, their hate for everything evil, most of all the Witch King."
Mellamir took a linen napkin from the blanket and used it to wipe away Merry's tears. "Do you understand now?"
"No," he said. "But I think I'm beginning to." He smiled, and the wrinkles around his eyes began to fade away. Then he looked down at his own pipe, the fire put out by the water Mellamir had poured on it, but instead of reaching for his flint-box he laid the pipe down and looked across the blanket. "My word, are those mushrooms ...!" he cried at last, and Mellamir leaned back against the tree. Merry, however, was busy crawling across the blanket towards the basket piled high.
-------
Mellamir and Merry had been too busy to notice that they weren't the only ones enjoying the fine weather that afternoon. If they would have looked back toward the city they would have seen, through the gaping torn-down places in the wall, Éowyn and Faramir walking through the fields of Pelennor.
"Do you know what I've always wanted, Éowyn?" Faramir asked, stooping down and sifting some of the rich black soil through his fingers. "A garden, right here in the city."
"A garden!" Éowyn said in surprise. "Why, what put that idea in your head?"
"You didn't know?" he asked. "I grew up on one."
"No!"
"Yes. For the first twelve years of my life. You see, I'm only Denethor's adopted son; we're really his nephews, Boromir and I, and we grew up on a farm not far south of the Pelennor." He sighed contentedly. "Wonderful land. Mellamir was there for about six months before --" He stopped short, looking into Éowyn's eyes, then continued. "Mellamir, though we called her Mellawen back then, and her mother Finduilas came out to our farm one March. I was twelve at the time. You see, Mellawen had a cough, and the healers ordered fresh country air. We had plenty of that. Finduilas planted a small garden, a flower garden, and Mellawen and I, we worked in it all that summer. I think that was probably the happiest time of my life. Then that September they both died, my father Arabôr and Finduilas, in a flood. And I caused it. It was all my fault." A tear rolled down his cheek, but he ignored it and looked up at the rich blue mantle Éowyn wore. He rubbed his clean hand against its fur hem.
"Éowyn, this mantle, it belonged to my mother. Ivriniel, Finduilas's sister. She died when I was three months old, was killed by an orc. I never saw her wear it, but I can't imagine that she looked half as beautiful as you do now."
"So much pain," she sighed.
"Yes," Faramir replied, "it was a long time ago, but sometimes at night I still hear them: the orc who broke my mother's neck, and that horrible flood that swept away my father and the woman who had become a mother to me."
"Look not to the shield-maid for healing, my lord!" she laughed bitterly. "I am sorry, but my hands are rough, too accustomed to gripping the sword-hilt to be much use at anything else."
"To all but one," Faramir said quietly.
"To all but one," she repeated to herself.
"And I'm not the one." Éowyn turned away, starting to leave, but Faramir grabbed her arm. "No, don't go, Éowyn. I know that you love Aragorn, and rightly so! He is a great man and worthy of homage. So when you saw that you loved him but he only loved that elf-maid, you swore that you would have no other master, except perhaps death: death in battle, if you could. You have hurt at least as much as I have. You have lost your own parents, as well as your uncle who you saw as a father. And more than that, you have lost the one true love of your heart." He paused. "Éowyn, I match you in all those pains, save for one. I have not yet lost the one I love, but I fear I might. I love you, Éowyn."
"Pity, you mean."
"No, love," he answered. "I pitied you at first, yes, but not any more. If you were as vibrant as you once were -- yes, I see the dance in your eyes -- and I had no reason to pity you, still I am sure that I would love you. Éowyn, won't you let me heal you?"
"How?" she asked sceptically.
"It's amazing the effect of a garden, Éowyn," Faramir answered. "Minas Tirith could use one. See, the land is free, and we do not have to hide inside this wall anymore. Let the farmers move to the outlying fields, and let us make this into a garden, with trees, and bushes, and flowers, and vines, and benches, and fountains, and statues, and paths going every which way. And let it be open to all who would come, from the milliner's son to my very own. And let there be one like it in Edoras, Lady Éowyn. And let us -- let us build them together. Then we can build our own tiny garden, far away from the world."
"Oh, Faramir," Éowyn replied, "you're not a gardener, you're a -- a king! And I am rough. I could never be a queen."
"Well, that's good, fair lady, because I have no a kingdom to offer you. All I want, and all I can hope for now that the king will soon return, is a little patch of land somewhere, my own, and a cheerful lady to tend it with me."
Éowyn smiled and looked down at the soil. "If a garden is half you seem to think it is," she replied, "then no kingdom on earth could compare."
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At that very hour a messenger from Ithilien rode up and, seeing Faramir lord of Gondor in the garden, rode over there. He stopped, however, for as he got closer he recognized the resemblance between the lady sitting under the tree and Faramir and, remembering Lord Éomer's description, realized this had to be the lady Mellamir, which meant the child beside her was not a child but the halfling he sought. So he dismounted, bowed, and handed Merry a letter from Éomer. Pippin was much better after nearly being crushed under a troll, and Frodo and Sam should be waking up any day. Éomer, though, missed the cheerful hobbit and wanted his page to hold his cup. He was to come as fast as he could and not worry about anything but his cloak and his pipe-weed; the rest would be provided for him in Ithilien.
Mellamir ran back to the city gate to tell the guard that Lailagonde would have to take back the keys to the city until Faramir was ready to claim them, gathered her own horse and the one it had been grazing near, and rode back to the tree. The messenger put Merry on Mellamir's horse before mounting the spare, and they rode off together into the east, toward Ithilien.