The Captivity of Boromir
by Varda
3; The Red Guard
The lid of the treasure chest was slammed
shut
with a sharp crack that echoed away into silence. The Tetrarch stared
at Taise and she gazed back with an expression of sullen defiance. One
gold coin, displaced from the chest, bounded onto the table and then to
the floor where it rolled lazily away down the hall with a faint,
musical tinkle. Boromir, stunned to silence, followed its path with his
eyes then looked from one of his enemies to the other, wondering what
now would be his fate…
So absolute was the quiet that sounds intruded from outside the
hall; the whinny of a horse, shouts as the guard was changed. A hunting
hound baying mournfully. Boromir started when at last Airgead broke the
silence with a soft laugh.
‘So…’ he said slowly ‘…even the fiercest of my champions has fallen
under the spell of the House of Denethor’ he looked at Taise ‘I cannot
blame you, Ghost Warrior. Once, I too was under their spell. I would
have died for this family….’
His voice trailed away, and his face for a moment was seared by
longing for the past. Then it darkened, and grievance overcame all that
was good in his memories of Gondor….he said to Taise in a voice that
had turned icy;
‘Give me one reason why I should not kill this man, as is my right
and the custom of our people. Give me one reason only, Taise. Insult my
memory of banishment and shame….’
‘He hasn’t done you any wrong!’ cried the girl. ‘It was his father who
banished you….’
Airgead’s face was like stone.
‘Like father, like son….’ he said.
Taise did not reply, and turning away from her and the treasure
chest, the lord of the Easterlings walked slowly over to his throne and
threw himself into it with a sigh, as if he were exhausted.
‘It matters not at all, Ghost Warrior…’ he said quietly to his
champion. ‘..whether you take the gold or not. I will have this man’s
blood…’
‘If I do not take your gold, he is not yours to kill! protested Taise.
‘You cannot break the law of hostage!’
Airgead was on his feet at once, his voice hoarse with rage;
‘I can do whatever I like! I am the Tetrarch of Rhun, and I command
all life and death in this country, under the Eye of Sauron himself. If
it pleases me, I will kill you both…!’
Taise did not reply; her face was not to be read. It had that
closed look she wore in battle, concealing any emotion which might
betray her to the enemy….
Suddenly Boromir laughed.
‘Is this how you rule your people. Tetrarch?’ he asked in scorn.
‘You cast aside their laws so that you can take what you want by
force. You blame my father who punished you but spared your life, but
you yourself rule with violence…..’
Boromir shook his head.
‘It is a long way from Gondor that you have come, Mardil….’
Despite everything, the remark stung. Airgead’s face went white.
But he said nothing, and after a few moments the colour returned to his
face and he smiled and it was clear he had mastered his anger. Boromir
realised he could not use the Tetrarch’s feelings against him; he had
long ago surrounded his heart with a wall of steel. ….
‘Yes, Boromir…’ he said ‘it is indeed far from Gondor that we both have
come. But I still bear something of my homeland….’
And putting a hand to his belt, Airgead drew a long, broad-bladed
dirk from a scabbard at his side. Boromir stared at it, a cold feeling
coming suddenly over his heart. Airgead held up the knife; the dim
light from the smoke-hole in the roof of the hall glinted on the blade
and Boromir saw, with a thrill of recognition, that engraved in silver
on the fine blue-grey steel was the symbol of a tree and a
seven-pointed star. This was a weapon made in Gondor……
‘Do you recognise it?’ asked Airgead quietly. Boromir nodded.
‘It is part of a sword of Gondor, one such as a Captain alone may
bear…..’ he said in a low voice.
Airgead nodded eagerly.
‘Exactly right!’ he replied.
The Tetrarch then walked across to stand a few feet from Boromir.
He looked the prince of Gondor up and down. Boromir stood waiting, his
long red and black tunic torn and blood-stained but with the same tree
and stars of Gondor embroidered on the material as was visible on the
blade.
Airgead stared at the emblem and said;.
‘On the day your father banished me, in the Great Hall of the Citadel,
before all the officers of Gondor, Denethor broke my captain’s sword
and threw the pieces in my face. Then, before I was sent away from his
presence, he made me pick them up. So I took them away with me, into
exile….’
He paused for a moment, but not in an effort to remember. Boromir could
see that he had that day still engraved on his heart.
‘I had no weapon, so the sword broken to disgrace me became my only
defence. I removed the pommel and ground down the hilts so the weapon
could be worn in a belt. I honed the broken tip to a sharp point. Many
times it saved my life……’
He held it up and looked at it for a long moment. Then he turned to
Boromir, and his one eye was cold.
‘Do you not think, Boromir, that is it fitting that I use the very
weapon with which your father disgraced me to kill his son?’
A thrill of involuntary fear ran through Boromir, and he saw Taise
start and grow tense a few feet away. Airgead moved closer to him, and
he was smiling.
‘The Easterlings say that revenge should be taken slowly, and after a
very long time. But perhaps I am still a man of Gondor after all; I
prefer retribution to be swift, and sudden…..’
And he raised the knife, and he was not smiling any more. But then
he hesitated. There was utter silence in the hall. Even the noises
outside seemed to have ceased. Boromir could hear his own heart
beating. He looked at the broad, blue-steel blade and his mind raced as
he wondered how to counter an attack. His father Denethor’s
masters-at-arms had taught him and his brother Faramir well, in both
armed and unarmed fighting. But Boromir was weak from loss of blood;
his wound ached from the fight with the guards. He knew he had little
strength left to battle a warrior such as Airgead. The bleak thought
rose in his mind. I am going to die……
But the moments passed and Airgead did not attack, just stood gazing at
his captive. At last Boromir cried;
‘What are you waiting, Tetrarch of Rhun? Do you want Boromir of Gondor
to beg for his life? That I will never do…..’
Airgead replied in a cold voice;
‘I do not want anything from you, son of Denethor, except your blood….’
Airgead moved across the rush-strewn stone flags of the great hall.
His hand with the knife was raised. But when he was in front of his
quarry, he stopped. Boromir, leaning forward with his weight lightly
balanced on both feet, ready to avoid the blow, looked up and saw
uncertainty in the Tetrarch’s face…..
Perhaps he was about to change his mind, and to spare Boromir’s
life. Perhaps he was only savouring his captive’s fear. No-one would
ever know, for as he stood before the prince of Gondor, his champion,
Taise, snatched her long, curved scimitar from its scabbard and brought
the blade down on Airgead’s undefended neck.
So quick was Taise’s hand that even Boromir could not see it, only the
white blur of the curved blade, bright as a quarter moon in a midnight
lake, as it flashed upward then descended with a faint singing noise….
Swift as Taise was, however, Airgead was swifter. He saw the sword
coming in the corner of his one eye and in less than a heartbeat he
ducked sideways, raising his arm to deflect the blow. The Tetrarch wore
armguards of leather strengthened with bands of copper, and the sharp
blade of the scimitar bit into the leather but rebounded from the
metal, flying aside to scrape off his hand then strike sparks from the
stone floor.
Airgead retreated quickly, before Taise could recover her sword for
another blow.
‘I always wondered, Ghost warrior….’ He said, slightly out of breath.
‘…if you were as fast as they said. I am happy to see those who praised
you did not lie….’
Then Airgead pushed the knife of Gondor into his belt and drew his own
sword from its scabbard. It was a weapon after the fashion of the
Easterlings, long, narrow and curved, with a long handle and an oval
hilt red-enamelled and engraved with runes..
‘Sadly for you and Boromir your captive, however…’ he went on. ‘ I am
even faster….’
Boromir would have thought nothing could move as quickly as Taise, but
Airgead now matched her for speed; almost before she could raise her
sword on guard, Airgead darted forward and thrust his blade at her
heart.
It seemed to Boromir that the woman warrior who had captured him must
die; but Taise was not so easily beaten. She twisted sideways and the
blow tore loose the gilded brass plates on her lamellar armour, one
after another, before the tip caught in the plate that protected her
shoulder. The steel pierced her upper arm and drew blood, and Taise
stumbled backwards, clutching her arm.
Airgead stood looking at his champion, holding his sword steady in
front of him. A trickle of blood, brilliant red in the dim hallt,
dripped from his cut hand down onto the rushes and dried flowers strewn
on the floor of the hall. Taise held her own sword out on guard, but it
was shaking, and with one hand she held her gashed arm; the force of
Airgead’s blow had torn flesh from bone. Her face betrayed no emotion,
but Boromir, watching, knew she had no strength in her sword arm. As
she moved round Airgead, a line of bright red drops of blood described
a circle on the sunlit stone floor….
Suddenly Boromir stepped between them.
‘There is no need to kill your champion, Mardil…’ he said to the
Tetrarch.‘It’s me you want. Well, here I am. Let her go, this is
nothing to do with her. She vanquished me fairly and brought me to you,
but your only reward for loyalty is treachery. Give her the reward, and
let her go…’
Airgead looked long at Boromir. Then he said to Taise;
‘Put your sword away, Ghost Warrior.’
Then he looked at Boromir and said;
'Do not worry; for some reason, I am no longer in the killing mood....'
The Tetrarch stopped speaking. He brushed the blood from his wounded
hand thoughtfully. Then a change seemed to come over him. He smiled and
said briskly;
‘Ghost Warrior, I will spare you…for now. I might even let you take
some of your gold. Champions like you are hard to find…..’
As he spoke, Airgead stooped and picked up the one stray gold coin
that had fallen from the treasure chest. He threw it to Taise who
caught it with her good hand, her face impassive. Airgead smiled, then
shrugged his great bearskin cloak onto his shoulders. He snapped his
fingers and at once the massive doors of the hall swung open and two
guards hurried down the line of wooden pillars to pick up the long
black silk veil and rearrange it into their lord’s sinister headdress.
‘I will decide what to do with you both later…’ Airgead said to Taise
and Boromir as they stood watching in silence. One of the attendants
fastened the black silk in place with a badge of silver in the shape of
a dragon, the Dragon of the Tetrarch. The other, without showing any
surprise, bound up his cut hand. Airgead shook out the black cloak to
display the emblem of a great red eye. Boromir stared in horror.
Airgead chuckled.
‘Old friends make the worst enemies….’ He said. ‘would that your father
had understood that. Now…’ and he bowed to Boromir. ‘…you must excuse
me. I have to wear the mantle of the Tetrarch for a while and attend to
duties far more tedious than deciding how you will die. That is a
pleasure I must save for later. In the meantime, as my gold has
apparently been refused, Taise will continue to act as my champion and
be your guard…’
Taise looked uneasy but said nothing. Airgead started towards the door.
Halfway down the hall, he stopped and looked back.
‘Well, come along! I have something I want you to see. You in
particular, Boromir. I know you will appreciate it….’
The great wooden doors of the Hall of the Tetrarch were thrown open
and cold, brilliant sunlight flooded into the high room. Boromir and
Taise blinked, then as their eyes accustomed themselves to the glare,
they saw drawn up on the snow-sprinkled ground in front of the hall two
rows of guards, their gilded armour shining in the winter sunlight,
their long pikestaffs held erect in front of them, red and black
pennants fluttering in the strong, cold wind.
Taise and Boromir followed the Tetrarch as he reviewed his guards.
Boromir saw the champion’s sleeve was dyed with blood. He said to her
in a low voice;
‘Are you badly hurt?’
‘Save your concern for yourself’ she hissed back. ‘You will need it
more than me…..’
Airgead was looking back to make sure they were following him. In
long, slow strides he walked along the lines of warriors. This was his
personally chosen bodyguard, an elite of Easterling soldiers. All the
men were tall, even taller than Boromir. They wore armour of gilded
brass, wrought cunningly of strips of metal interwoven and inlaid with
their flowing, barbaric script. Every part of their bodies was
protected by fine golden mail, and they bore helmets with a wide round
rim to guard against blows to the neck and shoulders. The helmets had
visors that hid the men’s faces, and under these were black masks, so
that the only part of the guard’s face that was visible was his eyes,
dark and watchful, and between their eyes there was often a tattoo, of
an arrow-head or a sun or more usually a half-moon.
Another silver half-moon adorned their helmets, above the forehead. On
the sides of the helms were curving strips of brass, to denote the
wings of a Dragon, the Dragon of the Tetrarch.
Over their armour the soldiers wore long red cloaks, their borders once
again decorated with golden script. Boromir peered closer, in spite of
himself, trying to read the words on the hems. Airgead snorted.
‘Do not try to make out their writing.’ He said. ‘A man of Gondor would
not understand it. Your father thought they were all barbarians, and
never learned their tongue or encouraged his people to do so. I know
what it means, though. Let me translate it for you; it says;
‘Death to the enemies of Rhun, victory will sit on our sword
blades; ruin to Gondor….’ And so on. As you can see, I have modelled my
royal guard on the Guard of the Citadel of Minas Tirith….’
Boromir looked aghast. It was true; the guard did have some
resemblance to the tall black-clad sentinels who watched over the White
Tree in the Citadel of Minas Tirith. Only these had gilded brass armour
instead of silver and steel, and their cloaks were red instead of
black. In place of the White Tree and Stars, there was the symbol of a
crescent moon.
‘The moon is sacred to them…’ said Airgead,
Boromir could only stare in horrified silence at the warriors, fearing
that troops as well armed and well trained were a match for Gondor’s
soldiers. Airgead spoke to him then in a low voice;
‘The people call them the Red Guard. But myself, I know them as
the Company of the Moon. If Gondor is a city of seven stars, these
people are a nation of the Moon. I wonder will moon prevail over stars
in the war that is to come? What say you, Boromir?’
Boromir did not reply, feeling sick at heart. Airgead, seeming now to
be speaking to himself, went on;
‘I took these men from the steppes and trained them myself. I gave them
all the arts of war I had learned in Gondor. They were only boys when I
found them, half starved, herding yak in the snow. I paid for all their
war-gear out of what I myself had won as champion. I gave them food, a
place to live, a cause to fight for….’
Airgead looked at Boromir.
‘In them is the same fire and loyalty that I once had for Gondor. You
see, some things are never forgotten….’
They had walked almost halfway down the line of red-cloaked
warriors. Here, standing out in front of the guards, was their captain.
This warrior, unlike his men, wore no helmet and stood in front of his
charges bare-headed. His cloak and armour and mail were black instead
of red and on the breast-plate was a silver dragon. He was as tall as
Airgead but reed-thin, with a ragged mane of jet-black hair. But when
Boromir looked at his face he was shocked to see he had eyes of vivid
ice-blue. His skin was fair too, as pale as the snow on the ground. And
he was young, little more than a boy, despite his height. He stared
intently at Boromir; he wanted so badly to hate this man of Gondor, but
curiosity was stronger, and he stared into the stranger’s face with a
questioning look.
Airgead saluted the captain, who bowed his head and raised a long,
curved sword in reply. Then they walked on to the end of the line.
Boromir glanced back at the black-haired warrior, only to see he was
still gazing fiercely at him with his startling blue eyes.
‘You want to know who he is?’ asked Airgead with a soft chuckle.
‘..well, so do I. Those eyes, he never got them in Rhun. Or that fair
skin. It is Elvish blood mixed with that of men, or I never saw the kin
of Imrahil and the men of Dol Amroth.’
‘Where did you find him?’ asked Boromir.
‘He was a slave, working in the kitchens of the Tetrarch. Even then
his looks marked him out as different, and he was subjected to much
derision. One day, he was being baited by an attendant of the last
Tetrarch's champion. He picked up a kitchen spit and killed the man…..’
Boromir glanced back at the tall black-cloaked warrior. Airgead smiled.
‘Yes, I know. Slaves don’t have the skill or spirit to kill men at
arms, but he did. The man’s master, the champion, was annoyed, and
would have roasted the boy on his own spit, but I intervened…’
Airgead paused, and Boromir sensed a longer story, which the Tetrarch
did not wish to tell. He went on with a half-smile;
‘….one thing led to another, and I fought the champion, and killed
him…'
The Tetrarch recounted the event without any remorse. He laughed.
‘At a stroke, I became the Tetrarch’s champion, by the laws of Rhun
which say that he who slays the champion must take the champion’s
place. The slave became my property. I freed him and trained him to
arms. He still wishes to be called Saothar, The Slave, however. But he
is my captain and my foster-son….’
Boromir looked at Airgead in surprise.
'Did he ever say where he came from?’ he asked.
Airgead shook his head.
‘He could remember a city of stone, guarded by tall warriors in
dark-blue cloaks….’ He shrugged. ‘…some lost city of Gondor long ago
overrun I suppose, its people slain or taken into slavery….’
Airgead stopped. Boromir was staring at him.Then the Tetrarch said;
‘Here, cast out of Gondor I have created my own Gondor, my own
Citadel guard, my own army. Here I have even found a son, in place of
the family I lost when I was banished. Tomorrow we will march on Minas
Tirith. Then, Boromir, we will see to whom the future belongs; to
ageing and ailing Gondor, or to these fierce men of the North….’
‘If you win…’ said Boromir ‘…so will Sauron.’
Airgead smiled. ‘We will see about that……’
As the Tetrarch walked on, his Captain followed him and Boromir
with his eyes. He found it hard to look away from the tall figure of
the prince of Gondor. As he watched, he became aware of a sound in his
ears, a rushing noise as of giant wings. For some moments it
overwhelmed him, and he thought he heard other noises, the crash of
shield on shield, men screaming and the clash of swords. He saw steel
glinting in the flaring light of torches, and a great black banner
streaming ragged in the wind, bearing the sign of a silver tree and
seven stars. Then he felt himself falling, only to be seized and held
in the crushing grip of mailed hands…….
Saothar shook his head. The dream was gone, and looking down he saw
at his feet only the snow, blindingly bright in the winter sun. He
raised his eyes and drew a shaking breath. The vision came like a bird
out of the night, driven into a feast-hall by the storm. And always it
vanished the same way, back into the darkness. Since he was a child in
slavery Saothar had had this dream. But now, as they prepared to march
on Gondor, it was becoming stronger. He looked in the direction that
Boromir had gone, and wondered…..
