Young Boromir
by Varda
Chapter 20:
Faramir's Dream
Faramir gazed drowsily at two huntsmen pursuing a boar along a carved
and gilded oak beam. Their brightly coloured coats glowed in the dim
firelight and he thought they looked familiar. He started and tried to
sit up; the huntsmen were on the roofbeam of his room in Minas Tirith.
He was at home….
When he moved he startled someone sitting beside his bed. It was
Boromir, and his brother jumped to his feet and bent over him. Faramir
lay back breathless; he was too weak to sit up, and he had woken pain
in his arms and his wounded ankle. He raised his hands and looked at
them in horror; they were bandaged from the elbow to the fingertips. He
could not keep back a cry of dismay…
‘Do not fret, little brother!’ Boromir said gently. ‘You will be well
again, but your hands were torn from the ice, and frozen, so we
bandaged them...’
Faramir looked up at Boromir. His older brother was pale and gaunt from
the long ride back to Minas Tirith and his eyes were red from lack of
sleep. Faramir wondered had he been weeping for him…
‘What happened?’ he said in a tired voice. Boromir frowned.
‘Don’t ask, little brother. I will tell you everything when you are
better. For now it is enough to know that the Rangers rescued you from
the river, and brought you safe home to the city….’
Memory flooded back to Faramir as his brother spoke the words. He put a linen-bound hand over his eyes.
‘It was all my fault! I was not strong enough to hold Tréan….’
He took his hand away and looked at Boromir and asked in an anguished
voice.
‘Was anyone killed in saving me?’
Boromir hesitated, then replied.
‘One man, Galán’.
Faramir began to weep, putting his arm over his face.
‘A man died because of me! Because I broke a vow....’
Boromir pulled his hand away and said angrily;
‘No, it was not your fault! If it was anyone’s, it was mine. The horse
was goaded by a thorn put under its saddle. It was a trap meant for me
and you fell into it. It was not your fault, Faramir. And the man who
died….well, let us only say that Fate is just. This time at least….’
Faramir stared at his brother. Boromir looked fierce. Suddenly he
embraced Faramir, picking him up and clasping him tightly to his chest
without a word. Faramir felt his ribs ache with the pressure, then
Boromir laid him down again on the bed and said, tears in his eyes;
‘Nothing matters, except that you are safe…..’
For a while neither of them spoke. Boromir rubbed his eyes with the
back of his hand. The fire crackled in the wide hearth and outside snow
batted softly on the horn windowpane. The light was fading, it was late
afternoon. At last Faramir said;
‘There was an orc, a strange orc, he was the leader. Did you see him….?’
‘It is dead’ said Boromir with brutal finality. ‘I slew it.’
Faramir felt strangely upset at these words; not sad, how could he be
sad for an orc..but was it an orc? He recalled the stories of how orcs
were first made, from captured Elves.
‘He was not like other orcs’ said Faramir, but his brother did not reply.
Then after some moments, Boromir said;
‘You are the scholar, Far. What do the words; ‘Is mise fealltóir inniubh; tusa amárach…’ mean?’
Faramir stared at his brother in consternation; that was the ancient
Elvish tongue the orc leader had used. So the creature had spoken to
Boromir? Why would his brother not tell him what it said and what had
happened? But Faramir had the sense not to press Boromir; not now at
any rate….he replied in a quiet voice;
‘It means, ‘today I am the traitor, tomorrow it will be you….’
Boromir grew pale and looked away from Faramir, staring into the coals
of the fire deep in thought. Faramir changed the subject and asked;
‘How is Father, Boromir?’
His brother roused himself and replied;
‘He sat by you all night, and only left to get some rest an hour ago
when your fever abated. He has had no sleep for three days.’ He frowned
as he went on;
‘He looks older, Faramir, these few days have bent him and he seems tired and aged. I swear his hair has grown more grey.’
Faramir was stricken with guilt but Boromir continued;
‘I must help him, Faramir, I must take as much of his burden as I can….’
He saw the look of hurt on Faramir’s face and hastened to add;
‘We must both help him, I mean…’
There was a silence. Then Boromir looked round and said with forced cheerfulness;
‘This will be your room alone from now on!’
The two boys had shared this little bedroom since their mother died. Faramir said in dismay;
‘Why?’ Boromir’s face darkened as he replied;
‘I am to be a lieutenant in the Guards, and will live in the barracks
in the Citadel. I will be Captain of the Guards one day. We are not
boys any more…’
Faramir felt hurt, but could not explain why. His brother looked very
tall in his black guards’ uniform, and Faramir felt an aching distance
between them. A nameless fear beat dark wings on the edge of the
moment. Then Boromir saw his face and said quickly;
‘Don’t worry, little brother. You are to be an officer in the Rangers,
and one day you will lead them. You can hunt the fair vales of your
beloved Ithilien for orcs to your heart’s content, little fox!’
Faramir started and turned pale; the orc leader had called him that,
Little Fox….but Boromir did not notice. At last he got to his feet.
‘You are getting tired, little brother. Time to rest….’Faramir protested but Boromir went on;
‘Gandalf left you this drink before he went away…’
‘Gandalf is gone!’ said Faramir in despair. ‘What about my studies….?’
He had looked forward to learning under Gandalf, now that too was to be lost. But Boromir laughed and shook his head.
‘Do not fear, little scholar. The wizard will be back, he said, at the
next new moon. You are to get well first. He said…’ and Boromir knit
his brows ‘..that he had an urgent errand to perform. It is always thus
with Gandalf, he comes and goes as he pleases. And usually when there
is trouble. No wonder father calls him Gandalf Stormcrow…’
Faramir thought how much like Denethor his brother was when he said that. He murmured;
‘I wish father would listen to Gandalf…’Boromir answered sharply ‘The
Steward of Gondor has no need to listen to wizards, he has his own
counsel..’
But then he saw the look on his brother’s face and said in a kind voice;
‘Come, little brother, this will ease your hurts and help you rest….’
With great care Boromir put an arm round his brother’s shoulders and
lifted him up and held the cup to his lips. Faramir drank and found the
drink sweetened with honey but the honey could not mask the bitterness
of herbs. Boromir laid him back gently and pulled the heavy black
bearskin over him and kissed him on the forehead. Perhaps it was his
fever, or his brother had become chilled sitting by the dying fire, but
Faramir thought Boromir’s lips felt cold, and the hand he laid on his
own like ice. But Boromir smiled at him and said;
‘Rest now, Faramir….’ And almost before his brother had closed the door
the healing herbs had brought sleep to Faramir’s aching limbs….
At once he was visited with dreams. At first they were nightmare echoes
of the chase and fight in the forest, dark orc-shapes charging across
the dazzling white snow, and the yellow eyes of the orc captain peering
into his very soul….but then the scene changed, and the icy river gave
way to a deep calm Anduin strewn with late autumn beech leaves like
gold coins falling through the depths. A mist, dyed with moonlight,
drifted across the black water like a silver veil.
Then the mist lifted and in the dark valley of the sky a single star
appeared, and by its light Faramir saw a boat drifting towards him on
the black tide. He stepped forward into the water and waded out through
the tall motionless reeds to meet it. As it neared him he saw it was no
boat of any kind known to him; it was of light grey wood, shining like
silver, and its prow was curved like a swan’s neck. Along the gunwhale
was a line of carved leaves and runes which Faramir knew as Elvish. An
Elven boat! But Faramir felt no joy even though the boat was fair;
something in its slow drift filled him with foreboding. He wanted to
rush out and look into it, but the water grew deep just beyond where he
stood and he had to wait. The boat slewed round and he raised his head
to look into it. The silver prow stopped and the boat stayed its
progress and Faramir could see what it bore. It was Boromir, his
brother, dead.
He might not have known him, as his face was bloodless and grey and
utterly still, not forceful and alert as Boromir had been in life. His
fair hair had been arrayed over his shoulders but seemed black in the
river dew. He still wore his silver-embroidered black cloak and the
silver circlet round his neck but drops of cold water shone on his skin
and no breath stirred his chest. His sword, so familiar to Faramir, lay
on his body with his long white hands clasped stiffly round the hilt.
And by his side, cleft in two, was the horn he had taken only a few
days before from his father’s hall….
‘Boromir!’ cried his brother in anguish but then the deep river claimed
him and he stepped off into nothingness. The boat, like a startled
horse, spun away on the tide and the icy waters met over Faramir’s
head. He was plunged into blackness which drove from his mind all
memory and thought.
Finis
