‘Twas in the Spring of the year 3019 that the Great Enemy began his
last assault on the city of men. Folk had long expected this move on
Sauron’s part, and under the hand of the Steward Lord Denethor, Son of
Ecthelion, what could be prepared had been prepared….
It seemed the Lord Denethor was everywhere in those days. Nothing
escaped his care, even in the slums and stews of the Harlond. He was
seen, tall and stern on his great bay horse, in every alley and
courtyard, seeing to the defense of his city. All knew him, for he had
been in his high office for long years since the death of his beloved
father Ecthelion. The Lord Denethor was not beloved, but he was
respected as well as feared, and under his rule the city had so far
been kept safe from the enemy.
Boys scarcely breeched were given the office of courier, to free
guardsmen for active duty. Old soldiers, long retired, were re-armed,
and sent to the ramparts and gateways, to keep watch and see that no
spy of the Enemy was allowed within the city itself. Now the entire
city waited knowing that a battle was to come, but not knowing where or
when the first blow would fall.
Yet it was rumoured that the worst blow of all, to the Lord Denethor at
least, had already fallen. His eldest son, the Lord Boromir, who had
ridden out the summer before on some secret errand, was not returning
to the White Tower of the Guard. He had been slain, it was whispered,
or ensorcelled, or taken captive. This was disheartening to all folk,
for he was a great favourite in the city and all the ancient realm,
being a man bold and hardy, as doughty as any, a man to lead other men.
His brother, Captain the Lord Faramir, was much loved where he was
known, but it was not known as yet if he was fit to take his brother’s
place. There was grumbling, and unrest, and this was surely no time for
such doings, with the city in peril.
The spring brought high water to Anduin, and the mighty river flowed
deep and swift going East to the sea. Ships rode high at anchor at the
Quays of the Harlond, though there were few now coming upriver. The
Corsairs of Umbar ruled the downstream waters, and the Lord Denethor
had, at this time, to be content to keep his own dockyards safe. The
inns and alehouses were suffering, for their chief business was always
with the crews of trading ships, and the narrow streets were quiet
where they were usually abustle.
The sign at the Inn of the Silver Trumpet hung crooked and the
stone-flagged porch was littered with dead leaves still lying from the
winter before. The great oak tree in the courtyard was now coming into
new leaf, struggling to keep its head green in the noisome air of Peg’s
Alley, and some little brown birds sang in its branches. A slatternly
maidservant dumped a slop bucket against the tree’s arching roots and
stood with her hand at the small of her back, sighing with weariness.
“What in thunder!” a man’s voice rasped. “You’ve gone and dumped that slop on me, you blundering wench!”
The girl stared, then laughed, as a tall white-haired man lurched to
his feet near the tree, dripping with the filthy water she had just
thrown. “Yer shouldna bin sleepin’ there, anyways,” she said, still
laughing. “Why didden yer just get right in with the pigs and all?” But
she backed away as he raised his fist to her.
“Be still!” he said. Then, with a savage oath, he pushed past her into
the porchway and into the taproom. “Landlord!” he shouted, thumping the
bar. “House! House!”
“Stap yer racket,” the tapster rumbled, setting a keg of ale into its
rest. “Oh, it’s you, Aldor,” he went on. “I told you, no coin, no
drink! Now get out of here!”
“I’m on active duty again,” Aldor said. “There will be pay coming, you know that! Word from the White Tower itself.”
“Well, when the pay is in yer pocket ya old rumbucket, you just put
some right here on this bar, see? Right here on this here bar, and
you’ll get served. Until then, you get yer sorry carcass outa my
taproom or I’ll throw you out myself!”
“Keep your tongue between your teeth!” Aldor hissed. “I’m a guardsman of Minas Tirith, and I want a drink.”
But now the big man behind the bar came forward, and in his right hand
he swung a mallet. “I told you,” he said, his voice low and flat. “No
money, no drink. Now out with you, or I’ll open yer noggin the way I
open a cask!”
Aldor backed away. “You’ll pay for this,” he said savagely.
“Yah! I’ll pay for this about the same time you can pay for yer drink.
Active duty! The Lord Steward must be mighty short of men to put such
as you back on the roster!” He raised the mallet, laughing. “Garn! Go
do yer duty, Guardsman! If yer can even find the bloody guard post.”
Aldor stood for a time in the street. He thought about going back into
the inn. Even in his present state he was more than a match for that
tapster, mallet or no mallet. He thought about tossing a few chairs
through the window and smashing up some crockery, but knew that if he
tried, the Watch would be upon him, and he’d spend the next week or so
in the cells under the Magistrate’s court.
No, he was back on active duty again, called up to the defense of the
White City. Sergeant Aldor son of Ingold, Guard of the Citadel,
swordsman, the finest trooper that ever came from the far off Glen of
Carrock. He remembered his first parade, mounted on the tall grey
charger, his sword bright as the stars in the night sky, his helm
heavy, the crowds cheering as his troop rode through the streets. Ah,
the maidens sighing and tossing roses beneath their feet, and the
Captain before them as tall and bold as some Elven prince of old.
Then the years of War, harrying the Southrons, raiding into Umbar and
Far Harad, and back up West on the borders of Rohan. The honour of
being chosen to wear the sable and mithril livery of the Citadel, and
the glorious year of duty there, made Sergeant, and actually serving at
the Steward’s seat, bodyguard to Ecthelion, Steward of Gondor. Back
into the Cavalry, year after year, riding and marching and fighting and
dying, until he was mustered out, one-armed and half-blind, pensioned
and be-medalled, thrown onto the mercies of the White City and his own
folly.
Naught to do and all day to do it in. He’d saved nothing, being a free
spender, so no partnership in an Inn for Aldor, late Sergeant of
Guards. No wife, no kin left alive up in Carrockglen. No one to care
for, no one to care for him. A room in an Alehouse nearer the high
streets. Then a room lower down. Then no room, but whatever rough
corner he could find out of the wind and rain. Sleeping like a dog in
the street, that’s what he’d come to.
It was the drink. He knew it was the drink. And every night, shivering
and nearly sober, he would vow and swear that the morning would find
him looking for some decent work somewhere. A one-armed man could still
work, could still lead a horse to water, could still comb the knots
from the mane or tail. A one-armed man, especially a big roughewn
hill-man like Aldor, why, he was as good as a two-armed nithing from
some soft village along Anduin!
But the morning would come and the rest of the day would be a long
miserable struggle to put together a few coins, just enough to pay for
his drink, the raw spirits favoured by the serious drinker that he was,
no ale, no wine for him. The brandy of his home country, firewater it
was, burning into a man’s throat and then his belly, setting the warmth
beating along his veins again. Then the songs and the tales, roaring
them out with others of his ilk, old soldiers all, worn out, spent, in
the service of Gondor and the Lord Steward.
Then the coins were gone, and the cup was empty, then the others
scuttled away, and Aldor like them would skulk along the darkened
alleys and streets and find a corner that was nearly dry, nearly not
cold, and the stupor of sleep would overtake him and he would fall into
painful dreams and then wake alone and afraid in the black night. He
feared no man, but he feared these horrible dreams and he would lie
shaking and cursing until dawn. The White City was black in these
hours. The White City, that he had given his young manhood to. Had
given his blood and his body and his life to! This was what it had come
to, an old soldier wounded in the service of his Lord, lying homeless
and hungry in some stinking alley! Then he would curse the Lord
Denethor, remembering that proud man as his first commander, while the
Lord Ecthelion still ruled.
On the first of each month Aldor and the other pensioners went to the
District guardhouse for the pension. It was paid out, coin by coin,
from the hand of a fat Sergeant, a desk jockey the old troopers
sneered. They sneered at the fat man, with his eyes like raisins in his
puffy face, but they took the money eagerly from his hand. That was a
busy day in the taprooms of the Harlond district, and long into the
night the carousing and shouting went on, and morning saw men sleeping
here and there, or saw them stagger shamefaced from the upper rooms
where old girls of the town sat in dirty shifts, counting out their own
pensions.
This morning of March 14, Aldor, late Sergeant of the Guards of the
Citadel, slumped against the brick wall behind yet another foul
alehouse. Below him the river coursed sluggishly, the rickety wharf
creaking in the current. This was the worst part of the day. The part
where the night-time resolution died, shrivelled in the fury of the
need for drink. His hand shook, his great blue-veined hand that once
wielded a longsword. It was his left arm he’d left in that nameless
dell in Ithilien, and he fought out that campaign, knotted reins looped
over the pommel as his charger pounded beneath him. His captain had
laughed, and called him ever into the front rank. “Sergeant!” he would
shout. “Sergeant, lead on!”
Those days were gone. That Captain long dead, and most of the men he’d
ridden with. Aldor recalled the march home, some foreign Captain in
command. What was his name? He frowned, trying to remember. Above him,
gulls circled, crying their sea-song. A bird, Aldor remembered. Yes, a
bird, an Eagle. Thorongil! That was it, that was the name of that tall,
grey-eyed Northman. Thorongil, who led them home to Minas Tirith, then
went away.
A nine day’s tale that was. And the guardsmen all knew that one, at
least, in the city, was glad to see the back of the Northman. Denethor,
son of Ecthelion, had not loved Thorongil, any fool could see that!
Barracks were ever lively with gossip and speculation, and the Lord
Denethor came in for his share of discussion. Still, he was a good
commander in his turn. Stern, ever strict, but quick to see danger, and
careful with his men. Serious, he was, not given to the easy jest, the
hail-fellow-well-met manner of his father.
Now that haughty Lord was up in his tower, brooding over his city,
grieving for the son who was not coming back. Aldor had been shocked,
seeing Denethor in the streets on the first of March. Still straight
and tall, dismounting at the mouth of Peg’s Alley, his highnosed face
pale and his eyes shadowed, Denethor had glanced around the filth and
stink of the street seemingly unseeing. He looked old, old as his
father never had. He ordered men to find the outfalls of the sewers,
and the places where men might land and come up into the city unknown.
His voice, with its highborn accent, still carried clear and firm, but
it was the voice of a beaten man, Aldor thought. He held himself
square-shouldered, soldier-fashion, and nodded at the great Lord when
Denethor’s eyes fell on him.
“Come forward!” Denethor said. “I see by thy bearing that once thou
wert a soldier in the service of this city. All who can wield a sword
are needed now, and thou no less than any, though thou be one-armed.
Art thou willing to do thy part?”
Aldor nodded. “Yes, my lord,” he had said. He put his hand on the hilts
of his sword. “I and my sword are at thy service, Lord Denethor.”
The guardsmen behind Denethor had sniggered, but said naught. Aldor’s
face reddened with shame, but he stood still, and the Lord Denethor
nodded and said, “Thy service is accepted. Go to the barracks in your
district for thy orders.” He turned and remounted his sidling bay horse
and rode up the street without a backward glance.
So each day since then Aldor had done his “duty”, walking a beat along
the stinking sewer outfalls behind the Harlond’s worst slums. He ducked
and dodged under strangling thorn-canes and clambered over heaps of
garbage, and he looked for the enemy and never saw anything but the
sorry back side of his great city. He kept at it until dark, determined
that he would do as he ought, and each day of the fortnight had been a
little easier. At night, he had stood listening in the fog, hearing
only the lap and slap of the river water on the shore.
Until yesterday, when he had found that wretched coin, the edge of the
golden disk barely showing in the mud. He picked it up, and felt a
sinking in his heart. He thought of throwing it out into the wide
river. But he didn’t. He put it in his pocket and it burned heavy there
all the day. Came the early dark, the spring sky light in the west and
one clear white star, and he walked up the long bricked alleyway to the
better of the Inns, one where he could get a bowl of decent stew and a
hunk of bread. He ate the stew and wiped the pewter dish clean with the
bread and drank one big foaming mug of ale and rose to his feet and
would have returned to his watching….but there was old Hirluin, who had
ridden with him….and one thing led to another, and he was wakened by
some stupid slattern……….
That the city was under siege now, Aldor knew. Word flew from mouth to
mouth, and those who cared to do so could stand upon the walls and see
the armies of the enemy before them on the Pellenor. Far off, beyond
men’s sight, was the outpost at Osgiliath on Anduin. Here was where the
younger son of the Lord Steward was put to stem the tide of Orcs and
Men intent on savaging Minas Tirith. Aldor had been many times in
Osgiliath, and he knew full well what it meant to defend such a place.
He took up his walk, trudging through mud and debris, watching and
listening. But nothing was there, nothing but the mud and the grey
waters of Anduin, sliding westward to the Sea.
That was a dark day. Aldor wondered dully if the day was truly as dark
as it seemed or if it came from some place within him. There seemed to
be no one about, and he saw that all the inns had shutters up, and the
empty streets echoed to his footsteps. At about the time of sunset
Aldor went back down to the mucky walkways under the docks and all that
night he walked up and down as far as he could. He was still soldier
enough to go quiet, but he saw and heard nothing, only the other
watchers.
Just when it might have been sunrise he sat himself down and leaned
against a piling and dozed. Something woke him. He wondered if he had
slept the day through, for it was dark. He smelled smoke, and heard a
distant rumour of battle. Then he saw a flat bottomed boat land on the
mud, coming silently out of the fog that now cloaked the river, and he
saw four or five Orcs clamber out. They spoke to each other in their
coarse way, but quietly, gesturing up to the planking above and the
buildings beyond. They bore unlit torches, and Aldor knew they planned
to burn what they could, then flee, thinking such a backwater place
would be but lightly defended.
They did not see Aldor until it was too late. He slew the first two
before they could draw their curved swords, and the next fell with a
gurgling cry at Aldor’s feet. But the other two, dropping the torches,
engaged him quickly, coming at him from both sides.
He had ever been a great swordsman, quick and strong, and the old skill
came rushing back into his hand as he swung the heavy blade. It had
taken many months of practice to overcome the loss of his left arm, it
had affected his balance, and had made him awkward and ungainly. That,
too, was as naught now, he moved with feline grace and speed, his old
bones suddenly limber and easy. One more Orc fell, its blood black on
the earth of Gondor.
The last was the best fighter. It had let the other do all the work,
only doing what it could to distract Aldor while he fought its mate.
Now it came at Aldor fresh and fast, grinning its foul grin and
growling out its gruesome threats. Aldor understood it, for it spoke
the common tongue.
Aldor shouted for the Watch, for the other old men like himself who
were to guard the White City, but no one came. The Orc laughed now, and
pushed closer. The savage blade caught Aldor’s thigh, and he felt the
scalding heat of his own blood. Suddenly the Orc charged him and rushed
him backward and they fell entangled together into the water. Aldor’s
sword was gone, and he reached, trying to get his hand around the Orc’s
neck. It growled again, and slashed at him, and he had it, his hand
around that bony neck. He felt the sword slice at his breast, then down
into his belly, but he held on and forced the ugly, leering face under
the water. He was more than a match for the wretched Orc, his long body
far more powerful. His last thought was that Aldor son of Ingold was
still quite the fellow, and that he was sorry he wasn’t wearing the
sable and mithril livery of the Citadel….
It was two days later before the Watch came down under the old docks.
They saw the flat bottomed boat and the dead Orcs and the two men
looked at each other and one whistled. “My Lord Denethor was right! Who
would have thought they would have tried to land here? I wonder we
didn’t hear of this before!”
The other nodded. “Someone caught them at it, though, lucky for us.
Why, these old buildings would have gone up like torches! See here,
here’s a sword. It’s a Guardsman’s sword, I vow.”
“So ‘tis! Let me see. Now who down here would have borne such a weapon? Surely, there must have been a detail from the Citadel?”
“No, there were no men to spare, that I know.” He hefted the sword,
then looked slyly at his partner. “Well, it’s worth a pretty penny, I
dare say. What say you, after we are off duty, that we take it up the
Goldsmith’s street, and see what it will fetch at the pawnshop? Whoever
dropped it ain’t likely to need it any more, nohow.”
The other laughed. “Not likely, I should say! No, some hero of Gondor
lost it, I reckon, and ain’t we heroes of Gondor? To the victor belong
the spoils, eh? Come on, let’s push these stinking Orcs into the water,
then we’ll be off.”
In a little while the only sound, once again, was the lap and slap of
water against mud and pilings. A flock of gulls wheeled overhead, their
white breasts shining like mithril in the Sun.
