Faramir Fiction Archive

The Prince of Ithilien (NC-17)

Written by Raihon

08 June 2007 | 33215 words

Trust

After lunch, Faramir and Éowyn retired to the small room adjacent to their bedchamber and awaited the arrival of Legolas and Mablung. Doronil had set four chairs around the small table, and Faramir helped Éowyn sit down in one. He cringed to see the brooding look on Éowyn’s face. He sighed quietly and sat down next to her, folding his hands on the table in front of him.

“Arwen is not upset only for herself,” Éowyn said. “I suppose she thinks I should be upset, too. Only I do not comprehend what I am supposed to be grieving. Do you no longer love me, husband?” she asked in a tone that expressed no genuine apprehension about the answer Faramir would give.

“Of course I love you,” Faramir answered calmly.

“Do you love Aragorn more than you love me?” Éowyn asked, her voice betraying a hint of doubt this time.

Faramir’s brow furrowed. “More? I cannot answer that. How am I to measure and compare, Éowyn? Do you love Elboron more than you love me?”

Éowyn surprised him with a wry smile. “I will never have to choose between my son and my husband.”

Faramir’s shoulders tensed. “Will I have to choose between you and Aragorn?”

Éowyn looked wistful. “Once you would have chosen me. Three years ago, you told me that you would renounce Aragorn’s love if my happiness were at stake. Would you still make that choice today?”

Faramir looked stricken. “Are you unhappy now?” He could not believe that he would miss the signs if Éowyn were suffering because of him, but he knew he had been preoccupied of late.

Éowyn shook her head. “But perhaps I would be, if I truly understood the cause of Arwen’s distress. So I ask you: if your love for Aragorn made me unhappy, would you now renounce it?”

Faramir felt sick to his stomach at the thought. “No,” he said flatly. “I could not; it is too late. If you asked it of me, I would never speak of it again, never act on it again, but my heart would not change.”

Éowyn looked at him solemnly. “You would sacrifice much for my happiness, husband.”

Faramir felt a swell of poignant emotion as he looked at his wife. She had never said to him, ‘we are one,’ but they were bound in another way. “I have pledged myself unto thee, wife. I will ever honor and cherish that vow.”

Éowyn cast her eyes down and then looked up at him again. She laid her hand on top of his. “I believe you.” She stared at him for a while with her cool blue eyes. “And I believe that your love for Aragorn will never cause me to demand such a sacrifice from you.”

Faramir brought her hand to his mouth and kissed it softly. She sighed and smiled at him resignedly.

Faramir returned her smile, but was still troubled and said, “I saw that Arwen pitied you, and I fear that Legolas, too, will cast such glances at you. He saw something in me this morning, and he knows that the change happened while you and I were apart. I do not know what he will make of it.”

Éowyn frowned. “It will be most vexing to be pitied by the Elves, but I will try to hold my tongue.”

Faramir could not help laughing. “There may be gossip, speculation,” he warned.

Éowyn pressed her lips together, thinking. Then she laughed mirthlessly. “Well, there is nothing I can do about that, in any case. What will you say if Legolas asks?”

There was a knock on the door and Doronil’s voice calling out, “Prince Legolas has arrived, my Lord.”

Éowyn smiled. “I wonder if his pointy ears were burning?” she whispered.

“Let him enter,” Faramir called, rising from his chair.

Legolas entered, this time betraying no emotion upon seeing Faramir. “I have come, as you requested, Lord Faramir,” he said, a little too formally.

“Please sit down,” Faramir said, moving to the door. He asked Doronil, “have you any word from Captain Mablung?”

Doronil nodded eagerly. “Yes, he is on his way.”

“Very good. Let him in when he arrives,” Faramir said, closing the door behind him.

The three of them waited for Mablung, sitting in companionable silence much of the time, for they were now quite accustomed to each other’s company. Éowyn asked about the business Faramir had been conducting the last few days, and Legolas listened, saying little. After a while, Mablung arrived and Faramir embraced him warmly.

“How are things in the north?” Faramir asked.

“Quiet enough, my Lord,” Mablung replied. “There is evidence that Orcs are about, but they are still timid, staying well away from the settlements and the patrol routes. The villages are chaotic, as usual. Lively, full of hope, but rowdy. Too many unsettled folk passing through, looking to make a fortune, or simply to make trouble!”

Faramir nodded. “Do you think it would help the situation to restore the traditional privileges of the petty nobility?”

Mablung chuckled. “As usual, my Lord, you cut right to the chase. I have not even greeted Prince Legolas and Lady Éowyn yet,” he chided.

Faramir bowed his head, conceding Mablung’s point and gestured to the empty chair, which Mablung sat in. As Mablung exchanged pleasantries with the others, Faramir unrolled his map. Mablung halted in mid-sentence when he saw his elder brother’s name scrawled on the map. He looked up at Faramir and raised his eyebrows.

“Your brother Berelach is still in Anorien, is that correct?” Faramir asked. Mablung confirmed this and Faramir continued, “I remember your brother before he was injured. He was a good man and a skilled Ranger.”

Faramir tapped his finger on the relevant part of the map, a large stretch of hilly land near the north-south road. “Your family holds the deed to substantial holdings in Ithilien. Does Berelach not wish to return?”

“He does, but I have discouraged him from doing so. I have not thought it safe. And in any case, he does not have the means to start anew. You remember correctly, he is a good man, but he was a much better Ranger than he is a farmer,” Mablung said grimly. “His lameness slows him down. His wife does more than her share, but their children are still young and require her attention. They fare poorly on that farm and cannot pay enough; their hired help works for a season, if that, and then moves on. They get by from year to year. They would not be unhappy to let a tenant manage the place if they had somewhere else to go and the means to build a home there.”

“I would like him to return, and to serve as the lord of these lands,” Faramir said. Mablung cocked his head, interested. “I need men like him to help me govern Ithilien, men who will be foresighted and dedicated, who will be responsible to the land and to the people who would settle there.”

Mablung bowed his head. “I am honored that you think so highly of him, but I fear that if you ask this of him, he will have to refuse and he will be humiliated.”

“Tell your brother to broker a deal with a timber merchant, as large a deal as he can manage,” Faramir said. Legolas frowned, but Faramir deliberately ignored him for the moment. “Have him send some of his laborers across the river to do the felling after they have finished the planting this spring. But before any of this happens, you must take a short leave from your service and build a dwelling on your land. It does not have to be grand; it can be a shack with a few beds in it, for all I care. But this will establish your legal right to re-claim the land, and it will provide a place for the laborers to live. When the contracted amount is paid at the end of the summer, your brother will have enough to tear down the shack and rebuild your family’s manor house in its place.”

Mablung looked stunned. “But, my Lord,” he said cautiously, “the harvesting limits?”

Faramir shook his head. “I have decided to raise the harvest limits this year to accommodate one contract per landholder, and the King has agreed.” He glanced at Legolas, who nodded slowly, moving his gaze from Faramir to Mablung. “I have also persuaded the woodcraft guild to return to Ithilien, but contracting with them is only practical for those lords who have already reestablished themselves and can provide a workshop. Next year or the year after, Berelach can contract with the guild if he likes.”

Mablung became uncharacteristically emotional. “Our family home…” he said in a breaking voice. His face flushed and he grew silent.

Éowyn smiled. “You will have your family closer to you. And perhaps you will finally take a wife if you have some place to put her besides a dirty cave?”

Mablung rubbed his eyes and chuckled. “You are assuming my brother will want me around, or that any woman would have an old man like me.”

Faramir raised his eyebrows, for he knew that Mablung already had a child by Éopryt, the tavern owner in Lendnos. “She might, if you asked her,” Faramir said.

Mablung blushed and chuckled again.

Faramir then turned to Legolas. “The other part of my proposal will be to create a land trust in my name, which will be home to your people so long as they wish to remain.” Faramir gestured to parts of the map he had marked with diagonal lines. “All these lands here along the Morgulduin are despoiled, are they not?” he asked Éowyn.

Éowyn peered over the map intently. “Yes, the entire area around the crossroads is dead and must be replanted. Further downstream, for miles on either side, the soil has been poisoned, yet life clings to the land. Arasail and I have discussed what the solution might be for healing what grows there, but we have come to no conclusions.” Éowyn looked further North on the map. “I do not know of these lands along the road. Even though I am Warden of the Land, I have not been allowed to journey there yet,” she said, pointedly glaring at Faramir.

“It is still dangerous along the road, my Lady,” Mablung said. “Though there is nothing wrong with the land or the trees, as far as I can tell.”

Legolas looked at the map, and then looked at Faramir, narrowing his eyes. “Would all this territory be included in the trust you propose?”

Faramir nodded. “I imagined that you would want to found a town on the Emyn Arnen side for now…”

Legolas put a long finger down on the map at the crossroads. “Faramir,” he said, interrupting. “The Rangers have a watch post here, and I have met them patrolling here,” he moved his finger north along the map, tracing the road to where it crossed a river gorge. Mablung shot Faramir a warning look, but said nothing. “Do you mean to put all of this land, territory that the Rangers keep so closely, into the hands of the Elves?” Legolas asked again.

Faramir felt a little anxious as he glanced from Legolas to Mablung. “Ithilien needs the Elves’ care for its land to flourish, but I would also welcome the Elves’ skill in protecting her people.”

Mablung straightened up in his chair and looked at Legolas. Legolas was staring at Faramir thoughtfully. Then a smile broke across the Elf’s face and he turned to Mablung. “What say you, Captain? I know not all your Rangers would welcome Elves among them.”

Mablung barked out a laugh. “And how many Elves do you know, Prince Legolas, who would suffer the company of a flet crowded with unwashed Men?”

Legolas nodded, still smiling. “Very few, but it would not hurt to try.”

Faramir turned to Mablung. “Will you try, Captain?” he asked, his voice serious.

Mablung stopped smiling and looked down at the map. Faramir knew he was thinking of Henneth Annûn, which was still a well-kept secret. Mablung looked again at Legolas, and then at Faramir. He shrugged. “I do not want to take this lightly, my Lord. We would be foolish to turn down any aid offered by the Elves, but many would think it foolish to offer up all our secrets to another race.”

Éowyn’s hand crept over to Faramir’s knee and, finding his hand, grasped it tightly. “We must trust each other,” she said firmly. “It will take some time to bring it about, but it is a wise plan. We must try it.”

Mablung bowed his head to Faramir. “As always, your men will follow wherever you lead them.”

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