Faramir Fiction Archive

The Song of the Steward and the King (NC-17)

Written by Raihon

19 March 2006 | 32932 words

Title: The Song of the Steward and the King
Author: Raihon (raihon2@earthlink.net)
Pairing: Faramir/Aragorn, Faramir/Éowyn
Rating: NC-17
Summary: In the year after the war, Faramir and Aragorn are working hard to get Gondor on its feet again. As they struggle with the hardships, they also struggle to find the meaning behind the love that binds them and their families together. Faramir’s POV. Overall themes: politics, mysticism, love, friendship.
Warnings: Some chapters contain graphic sexuality in the context of loving relationships (Faramir/Aragorn and/or Éowyn) and the overall ethos is polyamorous (there’s enough love to go around).

More in this arc: The Prince of Ithilien

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Year 3019-3020, Third Age: The Song of the Steward and the King

Chapter 1 – Bringing Order to Chaos

The winter’s first snow was falling in the hills of Ithilien when the company arrived at the freshly repaired gate of the town of Edenost. “Who goes there?” called the guard.

“Hail your Lord and Master, Prince Faramir and his companions, fresh from battle,” Mablung responded.

The guard hastily opened the gate and gave entrance to the three men on horseback. He gave a start when he saw that the other man with them was no man, but an Elf. He recovered himself, bowed, and said, “welcome back my Lord. I am glad of your swift and safe return.”

“Thank you, Eärnin,” Faramir said, dismounting. “How fares the town?”

“Winter’s early arrival has the settlers in a state of frenzy, m’Lord. The women have been preserving food morning ‘til night and the men hasten to finish repairing the roofs on the houses,” the old man sighed.

Faramir nodded gravely and handed his horse over to Eärnin. “We will go to see Elder Damriel,” he said, and led his companions down the road to the Commons House.

The buildings and homes that lined the road between the gate and the Commons were mostly restored, but when he looked beyond the road, Faramir could see that the alleys were still clogged with debris and the houses beyond were in a state of advanced decay. Men had not lived here since the times of Turin II and its most recent inhabitants, the servants of Mordor, had only used the town as a waystation and supply depot on the road between Morannon and Cair Andros.

After the War, the great-grandchildren of the town’s inhabitants were eager to rebuild, and while Faramir admired their tenacity, he worried that they would suffer much this winter. But then again, he thought to himself, there is nowhere yet in Gondor that is a refuge from suffering. This winter will test us all.

Faramir, Mablung and Legolas walked in silence as they passed two girls doing their best to pull nails from old pieces of wood. The girls stared at Legolas, but only briefly paused in their work. One of the girls clambered up a ladder and handed the retrieved nails to a man on the roof, while the other went foraging in the alley behind the house to salvage more wood from a crumbling outbuilding.

Legolas and Faramir exchanged a look, and Mablung cursed under his breath. “We need more iron, we need more food. Though this be the land where my ancestors died, and I understand their longing to return, it is too soon to resettle Ithilien!”

Faramir clasped Mablung’s shoulder in his hand. “At least these people have somewhere to go.” He turned to Legolas and said, “Minas Tirith is filling up with refugees who found nothing left to rebuild when they returned to their villages. After a summer working their fields and living in tents and makeshift shelters, they are now passing through our gates, a hundred hungry mouths each day, seeking refuge from the winter. It will not go well with them, either.”

Legolas shook his head, pausing outside the threshold of the Commons House. “They should not be here. It is still not safe. These people at least have rebuilt their wall, but those homesteaders further north…”

The door to the Commons House flew open and the haughty yet mischievous face of Elder Damriel confronted them. “Yes?” she said, eyebrows raised, “and what of the homesteaders in the north?”

Mablung smiled at her chidingly. “Elder Damriel, is that any way to greet two Princes and a valiant Captain?”

Damriel started when she noticed the tall Elf standing behind Mablung and hastened to invite them in. “Ambriel,” she said to a girl standing nearby, “please bring us some supper.”

Faramir held up a hand, “Elder, we would not draw down your supplies. We have our own provisions.”

Damriel bustled about the room, drawing chairs to the table in the center. “Nonsense, my Lord. It’s just a bit of broth to warm your bellies. Now, please sit and tell me news of your errand. Were you successful?”

Faramir and the others sat down and Mablung related the story of how they had defeated a band of Orcs that had been raiding homesteads in the far north of Ithilien. “And Prince Faramir took their leader by his slimy throat,” Mablung said animatedly, “looked him right in his festering eye and said, ‘King Elessar of Gondor has given you a choice: you may return behind the mountains to the free land of Mordor and live out your life as you will, or you may die here with my sword run through your belly. What say you to the messenger of the King?’”

Faramir pursed his lips and felt his cheeks flame. He could not recall having uttered such fierce words for the fever of battle had caught him and all he recalled was that the Orc had squealed like a pig and led his men in retreat along the road north.

Damriel scowled. “Now Lord Faramir, why did you not kill him where he stood? Mercy and the justice of the King are wasted on them. We will live to regret that you did not destroy them all when you had a chance.”

Legolas looked at her sharply. “There is enough regret to spare because of these foolhardy settlers. Their impatience to reclaim Ithilien before it has been properly cleansed of Sauron’s slaves brings trouble even to travelers simply trying to make their way to Prince Faramir’s estate.”

Faramir held up a hand and spoke calmly, “I am grateful you found us when you did and came to our aid, Legolas, but these are the tales of our times. We cannot prevent free men from doing what they will.”

“Nor can we offer them protection every time they throw themselves in the path of danger,” Legloas stated firmly.

“Well, then,” Damriel regarded the Elf coldly, “what of preventing free men from doing what they will in violation of the law of the land?”

Faramir turned to her. “So, you also have some news for me, Elder?”

She nodded grimly. “Poachers. In the hills just southeast of the town. They’ve been driving off the game so that our men cannot bring down anything bigger than a rabbit within an hour’s walk from the town, and the men do not have two hours to spare in a week! Then their leader skulks into town and sells our meat back to us at twice a fair price.”

Faramir looked to Legolas, who nodded. “We are on our way south, but with no great haste. We will set things right before we depart.”

Damriel smiled gratefully, “Ah, thank you, Lord Faramir. We will repay your help once we’re back on our feet again.”

After spending the night on the floor of the Commons House, for there was no other shelter they could take in that town, the three companions set off into the hills. Legolas tracked the poachers and they found a group of six boys, none but one nearing the age of manhood. Orphans of the war, Faramir surmised, and his heart was breaking for them, though the ringleader looked at him with hatred and fear.

Faramir looked into his eyes and solemnly said, “Know you who I am?”

The boy shook his head, the distrust in his face hard and defiant.

“I am Lord Faramir, Steward of Gondor and Prince of Ithilien.” The boy’s eyes widened in surprise and fear, and he stumbled back a step. “These are my lands and you have been stealing from my people.” Faramir paused, then gave the boy a small smile. “But Gondor needs every one of her sons alive and well, and you have done well to protect your men in these desperate times.” He reached into his saddle bag and produced a token bearing the Tree of Gondor.

“Take this, and your men, to the Captain at Cair Andros,” he instructed the boy.

“Is it a prison sentence?” the boy asked, holding the token at arm’s length in a trembling hand.

“Nay, son. It is a commission. The Captain will probably make you a guard and your men pages at the fortress. Now promise me that you will go directly and never again break the law of the King?”

The boy nodded eagerly and his friends began to whisper amongst themselves excitedly.

After that, Faramir, Legolas and Mablung made for Emyn Arnen, where a crew of builders from Rohan and Elven craftspeople from Greenwood were making good progress on the estate that was to be Faramir and Éowyn’s new home after their wedding.

“None too soon, is it, m’lord?” Mablung asked, nudging him.

“If it could have been built in a day, I would have given everything I own.”

Legolas frowned. “As it is, the workers are making great haste. It will be finished before the days begin to grow long again.”

“The builders from Rohan are honored to serve the White Lady, but they are understandably eager to make quick work of it and return to Rohan where their services are much needed,” Mablung said.

“We will continue to build over the next few years. For now, though, the moment the last shingle is placed on the main house, the builders will return to Edoras to send for my bride,” Faramir said, and sighed. “Then all that will be left to do is hang the decorations sent from Lórien and Éowyn and I may begin our new life together.” Faramir’s heart ached with a thousand longings for what that life would hold.

“What will you call the estate?” Legolas asked.

“Rín Tôr Nín¹,” Faramir said, a sad smile on his face.

Legolas nodded. “It is well to honor Boromir thusly,” he said. The three men stood for a moment in silence, in remembrance of Faramir’s brother.

Faramir turned to Legolas and placed a hand on his elbow. “Shall I show you around? Your quarters are rough, but mostly finished.”

After talking most of the night with Legolas about the Elf’s plans for the gardens in Emyn Arnen, Faramir slipped off for a few hours sleep before his departure with Mablung to Minas Tirith. In spite of the cold, he made a rough pallet for himself in the second floor room he would soon share with Éowyn and stared up at the starry sky through the open beams of the roof.

In the quiet of the night, alone with his thoughts, Faramir wondered: will she really come? And he recalled her rough but dainty hand as it clasped his when he left Rohan, and the way he, not she, had trembled at their departing kiss. Without her, he had no one to call his own, no one to love and no hope for love in return. He was well accustomed to being thought of as second to another man, and all his life he had bent his will to duty, but Éowyn’s will was its own master. Would being Lady of Ithilien be enough for her? Would he be enough?

¹ Rín Tôr Nín – remembrance of my brother

Chapter 2 – The Shadow of Doubt

Faramir opened his eyes and remembered that he was in Minas Tirith. The sky had begun to pale outside his window. Faramir’s mind ran in the same worried circles it had a month before, only now his thoughts were more urgent, because tomorrow Éowyn would arrive and preparations would begin in earnest for their wedding feast on the first day of the new year. Faramir looked up at the painted ceiling of his bedchamber, the same ceiling upon which he had looked all the wakings of his youth, when he would imagine his future of honor and glory serving the Stewards of Gondor. A thousand details of his duties that day called his mind from sleep, so he rose and dressed.

His beloved city, ground down by war and hunger, nonetheless hummed this day with Yuletide cheer. Faramir’s dark mood lifted with each ring of the city he descended, taking in the sights of small trinkets for sale and the smell of roasting nuts in the market square. It warmed his heart when the vendors greeted him by name and wished him happiness in the new year and in his new life. He loved Minas Tirith, but the Citadel held for him too many memories that weighed his heart down. It would be good to start anew in the hills, where he could see the city without having to live within the confines of its cold walls. Happiness might just be within reach, he thought. At last, I may have what I deserve.

The thought struck him like a blow. For him, duty had always been its own reward and the idea that he deserved happiness with Éowyn seemed to him like unwelcome praise from another man’s mouth. Faramir looked around him at the children running wild in the streets, and the ragged beggar women clogging the doorways of half-ruined houses. Down in the city’s lowest levels, the devastation of The Dark Lord’s attack had been near total, and yet here were his people, living amid the rubble, barely clinging to life. What, exactly, do I deserve? he asked himself.

Faramir stopped in his tracks and turned around, walking back up through the gates, his errand no longer important. As he walked, a new course of action formed in his mind. He knocked on the door of a house in the fifth level. His old friend and partner in swordplay, Tarondor, answered the door.

“My Lord Steward,” Tarondor exclaimed, “what an unexpected pleasure!”

Faramir frowned. “Your Lord Steward, is it now? What ever happened to ‘runt’ or ‘bookworm?’” He paused, expecting Tarondor to laugh. Instead he was met with an obsequious smile. “May I come in? I have a favor to ask of you, my old friend.”

Tarondor bowed slightly. “Of course, please, come in! My wife and I are so looking forward to your wedding, Lord, or should I say, Prince Faramir. It will be the first chance we have had since the war to really show our guests what proper Gondorian society can turn out.”

Faramir entered a large hallway that was lavishly decorated with family heirlooms. The sound of Tarondor’s children laughing echoed down the polished marble staircase. Faramir found that the smell of meat roasting in the kitchen nearly turned his stomach.

He turned to face Tarondor, who nervously asked “what can I do for you, my Lord?”

Faramir felt both loathing and pity for his friend, and for himself. He wondered if there were anyone left in the city he could call friend. He took Tarondor’s head in his hands and pressed his lips to his forehead in the Gondorian gesture of leavetaking. “I just wanted to say goodbye,” he said and turned to leave. “Do come visit us in Emyn Arnen sometime. The children will enjoy the fresh air.”

The brief visit left him feeling sullied and set apart from everything that he had called his life before the war. He frowned down at the cold stone walkway. He had a scheme to set something in the city right, but who could he turn to for help? As he rounded the sixth gate, he bumped into a tall bearded man in flowing white robes who exclaimed in surprise, “have a care, young man!”

“Mithrandir!” Faramir exclaimed.

“You have been walking for some six and thirty years now. I should think you had learned to look up from your feet,” Gandalf said tartly.

“You came for the wedding? I am so glad.” Faramir beamed.

“In case you have not noticed, it is my habit to be present at portentous occasions.” Gandalf indicated he would walk the way Faramir had been going and they walked up the tunnel to the Citadel.

“To my mind, pretentious may be a more fitting term to describe how my wedding is turning out to be.”

“Faramir,” Gandalf said sternly, “you are about to bring together the kingdoms of Rohan and Gondor in a union that will see the dawn of a new age. Is that not something to be proud of?”

Faramir sighed, feeling ill at ease with the burden of these words. To himself, at least, he was still just a man.

Gandalf’s eyes twinkled. “Your wedding day will be in the opening lines of songs to be sung for many generations. I thought I had better show up if I did not want my name left out of the singing.”

“Mithrandir, I beg you, stop teasing me. My nerves are already greatly taxed.”

“You are no longer Denethor’s second son, Faramir,” Gandalf said more gently. “Open your eyes; everything has changed.”

The memory of his father was still something he would not willingly dwell on. Faramir focused his attention instead on the second thing Gandalf had said, and saw a way to ease some of the trouble he had seen that day.

“Indeed, Mithrandir, anyone with open eyes can see the people living below, how they suffer, while the noble classes close their eyes and await my wedding as an occasion to show off their wealth and fealty by bestowing on us lavish presents.” Gandalf nodded. “Éowyn and I have all we need. Our home is comfortable and she will bring with her wains full of gifts from the Rohirrim.”

Gandalf laid an arm in front of Faramir to halt him and exclaimed, “it would cause an outrage!” Then he began to chuckle and shake his head. Then the old wizard erupted into cascading guffaws. “Can you imagine Lady Imanris bumping into a farm girl wearing a dress made from the silk she presented to the White Lady of Ithilien on the occasion of her wedding to Prince Faramir?” He could barely choke out the words he was laughing so hard.

Faramir laughed, too. “No, it is impossible, of course. But perhaps you know someone, a middleman, somewhere in lands laid less low by war, who could be trusted to trade the goods for food and blankets?”

Gandalf raised an eyebrow skeptically. “Perhaps it would be wise to consult your wife before making this decision?”

Faramir looked at him scoldingly. “Of course I will speak to her, but I’m sure she will agree.”

“As am I.” Gandalf winked at him. “I will see it done, my boy. That will be my present to the happy couple.”

Faramir attended to his duties for the rest of the day with a lighter heart. That evening, as had become their custom, he joined the King in his study after dinner. Though Aragorn was King and his father had been but Steward, Elessar’s court was less formal and far more merry than Denethor’s had been. Aragorn did not make a habit of working late into the night, instead spending his evenings in fellowship with his friends.

In fact, Faramir had come to rather depend on the King’s warmth during the cold days of Éowyn’s absence. From the moment they met in the Houses of Healing nine months earlier, Faramir had felt devoted to the man who had called him from the darkness, but he had been surprised whenever the King returned his affection in any small measure. Since he had turned over his duties leading the Rangers in North Ithilien to Mablung and returned to reside in the Citadel, he had been invited to spend nearly every evening in the King’s company, often just the two of them and the Queen. Their conversations had demonstrated a likeness of mind, their thoughts taking similar twists and turns, and the King delighted in challenging his wit and exchanging knowledge of stories and songs.

That night, though, they were alone, and the King was somber and thoughtful, quietly sipping his wine and staring into the fire.

“Mithrandir has come. Did you see him?” Faramir asked.

Aragorn nodded. “And tomorrow we will be besieged by the Kingdom of Rohan,” he said it as if to jest, but he did not laugh. “You must be excited.”

Faramir thought about it. Now the King laughed. “Please, do think carefully before you answer.”

“I only hope they bring Éowyn with them,” Faramir confessed.

“She will come,” Aragorn said. “You are trothplighted. She is already yours.”

Faramir found Aragorn’s tone a little formal. He was not at all in his usual humor, but Faramir felt restrained from inquiring about it.

Aragorn rose from his chair by the fire earlier than usual and smiled down at Faramir. “Between the arrival of the wedding party and the New Year’s celebrations, the next few days will be chaos. We should get our rest.”

Faramir rose, too. “If I may speak freely, Lord Aragorn, I will miss our evening chats when I leave for Emyn Arnen.”

Aragorn smiled warmly but Faramir detected sadness in his eyes. “Well, we will have to make sure to continue the tradition when your duties bring you to the Citadel.”

The King grasped Faramir’s head in his hands and kissed his forehead, his warm, dry lips lingering for a moment. Faramir did the same to the King, but when he pulled back, the King moved towards him and their faces hovered close in front of one another, their eyes locked in a gaze that struck Faramir down to his core. Briefly, Aragorn’s lips pressed against his, and then the King turned away and walked a few steps from the fireplace. He turned back to Faramir, who could see a furrow in the King’s brow as he said with intensity, “I wish you nothing but happiness, my dear friend.”

Faramir was taken aback by the words “dear friend” as much as the kiss. “Thank you, my Lord,” Faramir said, bowing, and quickly departed. He felt unsettled, as if something was pulling on him, drawing him back to the King’s side. He stopped in the corridor, wavering over the choice to go forward or turn back. Turn back? he asked himself, for what? He knew not the answer, so he took a deep breath and moved forward.

Chapter 3 – A New Life

Faramir dreamed: the evening star grew ever brighter on the Western horizon, shining now like the sun. The shores of the Anduin were green and alive as far as the eye could see. When the star set, it split into many smaller stars, ever diminishing until night fell. Across the land, great stones glowed white under the light of the moon.

That morning, Faramir was joined on the wall above the Great Gate by Aragorn, Arwen, and other members of the court. Faramir’s anxiety was visible and at different times, both the King and Queen laid a reassuring hand on his shoulder and spoke to him comforting words.

Faramir looked toward Osgiliath, searching for a telltale cloud of dust. He heard the horns first, though, clear notes ringing across the Pelennor, and then along the road, he finally saw the horsemen. The host from Rohan was at least 100 strong on horseback, plus several wains. At the head of the procession, Faramir could at last make out the shining helmet of Éomer and a white-clad lady riding at his side. Faramir felt the blood rush from his head and placed a hand on the wall to steady himself. She had come!

Faramir and Éowyn greeted each other formally outside the gate and walked, mostly in silence, up through the city. Once they reached the Citadel, Aragorn excused himself and Arwen invited Faramir and Éowyn to the private dining room in their residence for breakfast. After they were seated, Arwen made an excuse to leave the room, so Faramir faced Éowyn alone for the first time in more than three months. She looked so grave, Faramir held his breath, as if waiting for her to at any moment announce his doom.

“You look thin,” she said.

Faramir nodded. “I have been spending much time in the wilderness. The war lingers on in the north,” he said, moving his plate away. The scent of Orc blood and the acrid stench of the Morgul Vale were still fresh enough in his memory to turn his stomach.

Éowyn pushed the plate back. “Eat. You look thin,” she repeated.

Faramir smiled at the motherly gesture and at last, Éowyn smiled back. Faramir nibbled on a piece of toast. “You look wonderful,” he said shyly. He was gratified that she blushed at the compliment.

“I am road-weary. I must be a mess,” she said without coyness.

Faramir reached across the table and took her hand. “I have missed you very much.”

This time, a broad smile graced Éowyn’s face. “Really? You sent word so seldom, I was afraid…” the smile fell from her face and Faramir again was facing his grim bride.

Faramir stroked the back of her hand with his thumb. “I thought of you often, but what message could I send? So often I had only terrible tales to tell and I thought it foolish to send a messenger bearing falsehoods or mere pleasantries. I am sorry, Éowyn, please don’t think…”

Éowyn gripped his hand in both of hers. “Faramir, it is nothing. Rohan, too, has been a difficult place these last few months. I have been exhausted with work, yet everything that has happened has been too mundane to trouble a messenger with. But I see you now and my heart is glad.”

Faramir felt briefly dazed by her beauty and her gentle words, but his heart ached at the pain they both bore on behalf of their kingdoms. Without willing it, the words came out: “I love you,” he said softly.

Éowyn rose and circled the table. By the time she reached him, Faramir was on his feet and he pulled her into his arms, kissing her passionately. He caressed her hair and kissed her neck, and she moved her hands hungrily over his back and shoulders. With some difficulty, Faramir broke the kiss and held her close to him, his face buried in her soft hair.

“Five more days,” Éowyn said, “and I will be yours forever.”

Those words were all Faramir needed to hear. He felt calm now, and slowly released Éowyn from his embrace. He looked into her eyes, and he saw her there, not the stranger he had greeted an hour before. She was again Éowyn to him, just as she had been in the Houses of Healing and at Edoras.

“There is much to be done today,” he said regretfully.

“For the wedding?” Éowyn asked.

“No, well, at least my tasks are of a more political nature, since so many lords and captains are arriving for the celebrations. Arwen has had some people taking care of most of the wedding plans, though I assume you will want to take charge now?”

Éowyn gave him a disgusted look and turned her back, walking to her side of the table again. “I would rather help you with your tasks.”

Faramir felt a little dismayed that Éowyn did not appear interested in the wedding. “I would welcome both your wisdom and your company, if that is your choice.”

“It is,” Éowyn said firmly.

“But the wedding?” Faramir asked, a hint of worry creeping back into his heart.

“Introduce me to whomever has been in charge until now and I will make sure everything is in order,” Éowyn said finishing her tea. “It should not take more than a day. Then tomorrow, if you have time, explain to me which captains ought to be charmed and which lords need to be scolded. I cannot help you if I continue to be an ignorant outsider.”

Faramir smiled, and felt a strange surge of pride. “I will make the time,” he said.

The wedding was held on Yestarë, the first day of the new year. The normally raucous Mettarë celebrations were held in check, in honor of the solemn occasion the next day. By noon, the nobility of Gondor and Rohan had gathered in the Hall of Feasts, which was decorated with boughs of holly and spruce, and garlands of white ribbon. Down below, throughout the city, citizens gathered in the streets waiting to hear the peal of bells from the Citadel that would signal that their brave and beloved Faramir had wed his fierce and beautiful bride.

As the musicians played a traditional Gondorian wedding song, Faramir entered, his uncle Imrahil at his side. He loved his uncle dearly, but he could not help but wish that two others were there to stand with him this day. They walked slowly to the front of the room and joined Faramir’s cousins, who were standing to the left side of the dais at the center of the room. Faramir was cheered to see that Gandalf was standing with them, and the old Wizard gave him a pat on the back as Faramir came to stand in front of him.

Then Éowyn entered with her brother, Éomer. She looked so solemn and beautiful, Faramir could not help but smile and try to catch her eye, but she kept her eyes cast down. Her wedding garb was in the Rohirric style, without a veil, though she had made a concession to Gondorian sensibilities and had agreed not to be led in upon a horse. They joined the small group of Éowyn’s kin on the right side of the dais.

The musicians finished their song and everyone in the room stood as the King and Queen entered. Aragorn went directly to the front of the room and took his place in the center of the raised dais, while Arwen went to stand with Éowyn.

Faramir gazed up at Aragorn, who looked more splendid than he had since his own wedding. It is almost as if this were another man standing before me, Faramir thought, not the clever friend I jest with by the fire, whiling away the evening over stories and goblets of wine. No, this man is the King, for whom I have waited all my life. He felt both pleased and humbled that his wedding was to be presided over by so great a man.

“Dear friends,” Aragorn began, “today we begin a new year. The first year in many which we have met without a shadow cast over us. Let us give our undying thanks to our protectors, and to those who gave their lives so that we might see this bright day dawning.”

The room was silent but for the sound the King turning so that he would also face West. Faramir closed his eyes, his emotions surging upward until he mastered them with a few deep breaths.

Aragorn turned back to face the crowd and said, “Today our joy and gratitude is magnified by the joining in marriage of Faramir, son of Denethor, Prince of Ithilien and Steward of Gondor,” Aragorn looked at Faramir and bowed his head in greeting, “and Éowyn, daughter of Éomund, of the royal house of Rohan.” Éowyn nodded in response to Aragorn’s greeting.

“By the custom of Gondor,” Aragorn said to them both, taking a silver chalice from the table in front of him and holding it up, “I offer you a cup of wine. May the fruit of the land give you strength and comfort, and bring forth its bounty in you.” Aragorn handed the chalice to Faramir, who drank from it and handed it to Éowyn. She looked at him solemnly for a moment before taking a sip, and handing the cup back to Aragorn.

Aragorn then took a silvery white ribbon from the table and strung it out between his two hands. “By the custom of Rohan, I will bind you one to another so that all may see the love that makes two into one, and so that you may know that what was once separate is now forever joined.”

Aragorn stepped down from the dais and Éowyn held out her hand. Aragorn draped one end of the ribbon around her wrist and then Faramir held out his hand, so that Aragorn could loop the ribbon around his wrist and tie the two ends loosely together, the ribbon forming a figure eight between them. Aragorn then took their hands in each of his and placed Faramir’s on top of Éowyn’s, still clasping their joined hands between his. Faramir felt a strong sensation of energy passing through his hand, much as he had felt from Aragorn’s touch in the Houses of Healing. He wondered if Aragorn was deliberately doing this or if the King’s touch was always so powerful.

“So that it be known to all who witness here,” Aragorn said to Éowyn, “tell me: do you accept this man to be your husband?”

“I do,” Éowyn said clearly.

Aragorn turned to Faramir and asked him, “and do you accept this woman to be your wife?”

“I do,” Faramir replied, smiling a little.

Aragorn undid the tie and placed it back on the table. Still standing by them, he said quietly, “face each other and join hands.” They did so, and Aragorn said, “Faramir, son of Denethor, what pledge to you make to this woman you have accepted to be your wife?”

Faramir took a deep breath and looked into Éowyn’s eyes. “I pledge to you my love and loyalty, and promise to share with you all that is mine, until the end of my days.”

Again, Aragorn said, “and Éowyn, daughter of Éomund, what pledge do you make to this man you have accepted to be your husband?”

Faramir thought that for a split second, Éowyn’s eyes lingered on Aragorn’s face before turning to meet his gaze. It does not matter, he thought, as long as she says the words. Even now, she will rather fall silent than make a false promise.

“I pledge to you my love and loyalty,” Éowyn said with feeling, “and promise to share with you all that is mine, until the end of my days.”

Faramir slowly let out the breath he had been holding.

Aragorn smiled and said, “let all who are gathered here to witness this wedding of Faramir and Éowyn now confirm this union as consecrated!” A cheer went up from the crowd and Faramir pulled Éowyn into his arms for a soft, sweet kiss. Outside, the bells of the city began to chime and a great roar was heard coming from the people gathered below. Faramir placed his hand against Éowyn’s cheek and smiled.

Éowyn gazed back at him solemnly and nodded. “I am yours,” she said.

Much later that day, when Faramir entered the bedchamber, Éowyn’s servants had already removed her wedding dress and she sat on the edge of the bed clad in a light nightgown. Faramir’s palms became damp and he felt a little queasy as he shut the door behind him and approached the bed. He stood a few feet in front of Éowyn and regarded her with concern.

“Here we are,” she said, smiling nervously.

“Éowyn, I do not have to stay here tonight. If you are tired, I can return to my chamber.”

Éowyn looked at him in alarm. “Is that what you want?”

Faramir examined her face, trying to discern what it was that she wanted. “I do not want to…if you would be more comfortable…” he stammered.

Éowyn rose, her eyes flashing. “Comfortable? No, I do not seek comfort this night, Faramir.” She took a step towards him, so they were less than an arm’s length apart. “I seek to be made your wife.”

Faramir’s heart pounded heavily, his eyes lingering over the curves to which Éowyn’s nightgown clung.

“Is that what you want?” Éowyn repeated, and Faramir’s eyes snapped back to her face. “Is it?”

“Of course,” he whispered hoarsely.

Éowyn reached out and touched his chest, running her hand slowly from collarbone to hip bone. Faramir shivered slightly. Éowyn grabbed the front of his shirt and pulled him towards her. “You made me wait in Edoras, though I would have given myself to you then,” she said chidingly. “I will wait no longer.”

Faramir thought she would kiss him then, but instead she lay her other hand on his face, caressing his cheek, moving up and through his hair, her eyes fixed on his with a hungry gaze. Suddenly, she was pulling his shirt up and he helped her to remove it. Her hands roamed over his chest and stomach, tracing the edges of his scars with something like reverence. Her hands moved lower, exploring his reaction to her touch with a delicacy that almost made Faramir squirm.

Then she stopped and looked up at him, suddenly unsure. She was just as she had been before, when they had crept off to be alone in Meduseld during those few weeks they had together before duty called them apart again. Then, she had been both bold and uncertain, but he had not allowed her enough liberty with their private time for her to overcome her unfamiliarity with his body. He had indulged himself, though, and slaked her thirst on more than one occasion. He was eager to do so again. Selfishly, he did not want to teach her yet how to give him pleasure, and he took her in his arms, kissing her and touching her in many tender places.

He undressed her and laid her back on the bed, kissing his way down her neck to her breastbone, his hand working one nipple into hardness, and then kissing and nibbling on that one until the other one was ready for more of the same. Éowyn writhed under him, which Faramir took for pleasure, until she said, “you wretch! You would still have me behave like a maiden though I am now a married woman.”

Faramir looked up at her in surprise and then said teasingly, “but you are still a maiden, though you be married.”

Éowyn moved out from under him and flipped him over so that she could move on top of him. “You will let me look at you, and touch you,” she commanded.

Faramir felt a delicious wave of desire wash over him as Éowyn straddled his hips and gazed down at him. He ached almost painfully where her naked body pressed up against where he was still clothed. Again, she touched his face, ran her fingers through his hair, traced the vein in his neck, the line of his collar bone. Placing a hand on each shoulder, she slowly moved down his arms, feeling the curve of his muscles and the lines of the tendons near his wrists. She bent forward and kissed his neck, his shoulder, the hollow of his collar bone, the middle of his chest, her lips lingering there, lightly brushing against his hair. Tentatively, she touched his nipple with the tip of her tongue, and Faramir’s sharp intake of breath encouraged her to try the other nipple, too.

She looked up at him and smiled shyly. “I think you should remove your pants.”

Faramir raised his eyebrows. “So soon?”

Éowyn moved off of him and gave him a shove. “Take them off. I am getting them wet.”

Faramir saw what she meant and longed to taste that moisture at its source. Swiftly, he removed the last of his clothing and turned back to Éowyn.

“Stop!” she said, smiling. “Do not move.”

Faramir stood still, feeling self-conscious at his state of arousal. No woman had ever looked at him this way before and he suddenly felt vulnerable and judged. Éowyn’s eyes took him in, roving his body, appraising him.

“Come closer,” she said. She lay on her side and reached out to him with one hand, touching him gently at first, then gripping him more firmly.

Faramir felt his knees weaken at her stroking and he said, “let me touch you, too.”

They lay together on the bed, exploring and pleasuring each other. Sometimes kissing, but mostly looking. Slowly, Éowyn moved on top of him again, still holding him firmly in her grasp. “I am ready,” she said.

Faramir felt his excitement surge, but he asked her, “is this the way you want…?”

She smiled slyly. “I have been riding since I was three. I will not fall off.”

Faramir chuckled and grasped her hips. “I will be a docile mount,” he said, and gasped as she slid him toward her entrance.

“You need not be. I will tame you in my own way,” she promised, and slid onto him with only a small wince. She moved slowly up and down, her eyes squeezed shut. Faramir was so absorbed in watching her face that it took a few moments for him to realize what he was feeling.

“Oh,” he suddenly moaned. “Blessed be!” He felt he was being slowly consumed by a moist heat spreading from his groin throughout his body. His hands gripped Éowyn’s hips and encouraged her to come down harder, producing a cry and a look of surprise on her face.

“Did that hurt?” Faramir asked, concerned.

Éowyn laughed. “I am not certain if that was pain or pleasure. Let me try it again.” She thrust down on him swiftly several times. “It is a pleasure, but sharp like pain,” she gasped.

Éowyn continued to experiment and Faramir distracted himself from becoming too excited by watching her face, and plying his fingers on her body. Then she lay her body down on top of his and kissed him. Faramir’s passion surged again and he pushed up into her, making her gasp. She buried her face in his neck, then whispered in his ear, “you please me.”

Faramir’s control left him then and he rolled them over so that he was on top. He pressed his body against hers, biting gently on her shoulder as he thrust into her skillfully, going just so deep and just so fast, indulging himself but holding back a little. Soon Éowyn was crying out and he felt her convulse under him. He slowed his pace and kissed her face, her eyes, her lips. “I love you,” he whispered.

“And I love you,” she responded. “Please do not stop.”

Faramir raised himself up and gave her a taste of something slightly stronger, pushing himself rapidly toward the edge. She responded with such loud cries that he knew the servants would soon make sure everyone at court knew the White Lady was happily wedded. Her face was glistening, contorted with pleasure and it was too much for Faramir to bear. With a cry, he released into her, and collapsed into her arms. When he opened his eyes, he knew she had been watching him. For the first time, he saw a truly unguarded look on her face.

“Faramir,” she said breathlessly, “you are so beautiful.”

Chapter 4 – To Be a Man

A page had informed Éowyn and Faramir of the King and Queen’s arrival on the estate grounds, so they stood on the front balcony of their house to welcome them. A light snow had been falling since early morning, gracing the young trees and hedges with downy white adornments. Faramir breathed deeply of the chill February air and hugged Éowyn to his side. She smiled up at him and he kissed her on the nose where a snowflake had drifted.

The King and Queen arrived with a small crowd of onlookers, employees of the estate, who stared impudently at their new Elvish Queen even as they muttered gracious Gondorian words of welcome.

Aragorn first embraced Faramir, then, after a slight hesitation, Éowyn. Arwen’s greeting to Éowyn was much warmer and when she turned to Faramir, she grasped his shoulders and demurely kissed him on both cheeks, taking Faramir a bit by surprise, as she was usually more reserved. “Happy birthday, Lord Faramir,” she said with small but lovely smile on her face. “We did not bring you a present, I fear. Indeed, we left it in the city…”

Aragorn grinned. “At the orphaned children’s home. I trust you will not scold us for leaving your gift behind?”

Faramir laughed, “may I live long enough to see many such birthday presents bestowed. Come in out of the cold, Maida will take your cloaks,” he said, indicating a stern looking girl of Rohan standing nearby.

“What a harmonious blend of Rohirric and Elven styles you have brought together here!” the King exclaimed.

“Éowyn had much to do with the design,” Arwen said. “Since I have been here before, perhaps, Éowyn, you wouldn’t mind giving the King a quick tour of the house?”

Éowyn gave a firm nod and a quick smile to Aragorn. “Let us start with the upstairs. It is rather plainer, so perhaps the downstairs will give a more favorable impression for having seen the other half first.”

Aragorn gestured for Éowyn to lead the way, and Arwen took Faramir’s arm. “Are the others here yet?” she asked.

“Yes, but it is a small crowd. Legolas, Arasail and Luthir have all come up, and we were just joined by Beregond and Mablung. They are all in the sitting room.”

Faramir smiled with pleasure as Arwen embraced the other Elves and chatted with them animatedly. Arasail and her husband Luthir were dark Elves like Arwen, but lesser in beauty than the Queen. Arasail was planting an experimental arbor on the estate and Luthir was surveying abandoned orchards in Emyn Arnen so that they could again be made useful.

Mablung and Beregond approached Faramir, pronouncing half-Elvish nonsense sentences. “Your accents are abominable, boys,” Faramir laughed. “Behave yourselves in front of the Queen, will you?”

Beregond’s cheer faded a bit, but Mablung still looked ready for mischief.

Faramir noted Éowyn and Aragorn had completed their tour of the upper level and were now inspecting the common areas on the ground floor. Maida entered and set a bottle of wine and some glasses on the table next to Faramir, so he began to pour for his guests. After exchanging a few pleasantries with Arasail about her latest plans in the arbor, Faramir went back to the door to look for Éowyn and the King. The were just coming down the hall, so he poured them each a glass of wine.

Éowyn took a large gulp from her glass. She had a cross expression on her face. When Faramir gave her a questioning look, she pulled him out in the hall and across to the formal dining room.

“What happened?” Faramir asked.

“He is like the month of March on the Westfold!” Éowyn fumed. “With his warm words he coaxes the blossom of a smile from my lips, only to kill it off with the frost of his look. Toward all others he is constant in his affection or disdain, but because I am your wife, he covers his disdain for me with soothing words that only irritate because they are so patently false!” Éowyn took another large swallow of the wine.

“Surely not, my love. How could he possibly disdain you?” Faramir was perplexed. What had passed between them on their innocent tour? The tension between them had never eased completely, but surely Éowyn must be reacting to something the King had not intended?

“I tire of him already, but I will engage him in conversation at dinner. Watch and listen, Faramir, and judge for yourself.” She turned her back on him abruptly and crossed the hall.

Faramir shook his head. I do not understand it, but I will indeed watch and listen, he thought.

When Faramir returned to the living room, Beregond and Mablung were huddled in a conversation with Legolas and Arasail, and his suspicion was piqued. He went over to them to see what they were up to.

“Lord Faramir,” Legolas said in a teasing tone, “your old friends have many a tale to tell on you, it seems.”

“What are you on about?” Faramir asked, narrowing his eyes.

“What else are Elves ever on about?” asked Mablung. “They’re going to sing a song!”

Faramir groaned and he was grabbed on either side by Beregond and Mablung, who stuffed him into a chair that Legolas had drawn to the center of the room.

Éowyn clapped her hands in delight. “Maida, come quickly, your master is about to be made sport of!”

Maida peeked around the door frame and called out, “I was wondering when this party was going to get interesting!”

“Cheeky deoflum²” Faramir retorted.

While the others gathered ‘round, Legolas began to sing, “gwenwin in enninath…”

“Oh, please, Legolas!” Éowyn pled, “in the Common Tongue, so we can all understand.”

Legolas frowned, “it won’t sound nearly as wicked,” he averred. Arwen offered an obscene linnod as evidence in his defense and Aragorn doubled over with laughter.

“I think you are up to the challenge of improvising in the Common Speech,” said Luthir to Legolas.

“’Tis strangely easy for you to lay down the challenge for another,” Faramir taunted Luthir, “when you yourself cannot lay down two rhymes in a row!”

“The form we have chosen would give even Luthir little challenge, I fear,” Legolas said and began again:

Long years have past ere he was a lad
When he knew not the good from bad
Be it twelve year spirit or day old beer,
Drink up! came the cry of Faramir!

“’Tis false! ‘Tis false!” cried Mablung. “Those days are not more than two years passed.”

Then Arasail took her turn, clearly putting her conversation with Mablung to good use:

They say he once got stuck in a tree
And all his men gathered ‘round to see
Their glorious captain, seized by fear
At the sight of a snake hissing “Faramir!”

Faramir held up a hand defensively. “It was a very large snake!”

Éowyn leapt to her feet, “I have one!”

Faramir buried his head in his hands.

Éowyn laid a hand on Arwen’s shoulder and sang to her, rather badly:

After the wedding ‘tis never the same
I waited four months before I came…

Faramir peeked between his fingers and could see that the howl of laughter had come from Luthir.

…to Gondor and it’s mighty spear
But worth the wait was Faramir!

Faramir leapt from his chair and grabbed his wife ‘round the waist, spinning her to one side over his knee and kissing her long and hard on the mouth. “She has taught me the manners of her people,” he explained to Aragorn, who nodded approvingly.

“Lady Éowyn, I have a question for you,” the King said, and when Éowyn raised her eyebrows in response, Aragorn sang:

When she rides her black-haired steed
Does his speed outride her need?
O’er hill and valley does dew appear
And cling to the legs of Faramir?

Éowyn hooted and Faramir shook his head and wagged his finger at the King.

Éowyn stood up and answered:

With such a steed between my thighs
I ride content and full of sighs
And cry out loud for all to hear
‘Tis my own fair mount, my Faramir!

Arwen said, “well answered!” and clapped her hands, giving Aragorn a sly look, but Faramir could see that Aragorn’s mind was elsewhere. Éowyn noticed, too, and she barely concealed her annoyance.

“Let us change the subject,” Faramir suggested, returning to his chair. “You are embarrassing poor Beregond.” Beregond, indeed looked scandalized.

“Then I will sing a more innocent song,” said Arwen, who stood up and all fell silent.

Four less one is less than three
And four less two is naught to me
That two plus two is four is clear
But what holds up our Faramir?

“Ah, it is a riddle!” Luthir said.

“That is too easy,” Legolas said, narrowing his eyes at Arwen.

Aragorn also shot a strange look at Arwen, stood up and said, “Faramir, Legolas, a moment of your time?”

“What is the answer?” asked Beregond.

Mablung shrugged. “His chair, I guess.”

Faramir looked back at his chair, agreeing with Legolas that there was a red herring in the riddle, but he did not dwell on it. He joined Aragorn in the hallway where Legolas cocked his head and questioned Aragorn with his eyes.

“Maida?” Aragorn said. “Please bring our cloaks.” To Faramir, he said, “Enough of the singing. I want to breathe the fresh air and get my blood moving. Will you show me the grounds?”

Once outside and well away from the watching eyes of the staff, Aragorn laid an arm across the shoulders of the companion on either side of him and said, “days like today remind me what it is like to live as a man, and it is good to be a man,” he said, grinning broadly.

“And what are you usually, if not a man?” Legolas asked.

“The King,” Faramir said, and Aragorn nodded. Faramir, though he had been raised in the Citadel and did not chafe at its restrictions as Aragorn did, nonetheless well understood the nature of Aragorn’s mood.

“I feel that I may be myself out here with the two of you.” Aragorn gleefully kicked up snow as he walked.

“Frankly, Aragorn,” Faramir said, wrapping an arm around the other’s waist, “it will be my pleasure to take a walk with my good friend and leave that arrogant blowhard the King behind.”

Aragorn collapsed with laughter and dragged the others down with him, trying to get them as snowy as possible.

“With your permission, Prince of Ithilien, I would have you declare the grounds of Rín Tôr Nín a refuge for the King when he can no longer stand to take himself so seriously.”

“With pleasure, Lord Aragorn, I do proclaim to all that courtly manners do not hold here,” Faramir said, helping the King and Legolas to their feet, “and that the basest elements of the cultures of Elves and Men are allowed free expression so long as the wine may flow.”

“Boromir would have approved,” Legolas said with a wink.

“Nay, let us not lay the burden of misbehavior at his feet. We will blame it all on the bad influence of the Rohirrim, of whom my wife is clearly the worst,” Faramir said to Legolas who nodded in agreement.

Aragorn turned to Legolas and gave him a firm kiss on the cheek, then did the same to Faramir. “Now,” said Aragorn, “show me to your best vista so that I may look at the City and see what I am not missing.”

Legolas led the way swiftly up a slippery hillside while it was all Aragorn and Faramir could do to keep their footing. About half-way up, Aragorn turned to face Faramir with a mischievous look in his eye. Faramir stopped, firmly planting his feet at an angle to the hill, anticipating that Aragorn’s look meant that he was about to take a tumble in the snow.

“I am falling,” Aragorn said, and grabbed Faramir’s shoulders, twisting him around so that his legs slid out from under him and he landed with one knee planted in the snow. Faramir wrapped an arm behind Aragorn’s knees and brought him down, too. Aragorn grasped Faramir’s arms and pushed him so that they both rolled a short way down the hill.

For a moment, they stared at each other, breathing a little heavily, with foolish grins on their faces. Faramir, who had landed somewhat atop Aragorn, dusted some snow from Aragorn’s face and hair, feeling strangely tender toward the other man. Then something changed in Aragorn’s expression that frightened Faramir with its frankness, and with the sensual longing he felt in response to such a look. Faramir’s smile faded as he held the King’s gaze, until he finally said in an unsteady voice, “and you would have me fall, as well?”

Something blazed in Aragorn’s eyes that nearly stopped Faramir’s heart and he felt he had somehow hit the mark. Aragorn closed his eyes and pressed his lips together, as if to stop himself from answering Faramir’s question.

Legolas then called, “the view is poor today. I am coming back down.”

Faramir and Aragorn both sat up and dusted themselves off. Aragorn cast his eyes up at Faramir, who looked away, feeling thoroughly shaken. Legolas returned and they walked back down the hill together in silence.

Faramir’s birthday dinner was a modest feast considerably improved by some fresh game brought down by Beregond, and some strawberries sent upriver from Pelargir by Faramir’s former lieutenant, now captain at Poros.

“Is it springtime already in Harad?” Arwen asked, dipping a strawberry in some clotted cream, which she then proceeded to lick off the strawberry so she could dip it again.

“Strawberries can be found somewhere in the south at most times of year, except early winter,” Mablung said.

Faramir was watching Aragorn and Éowyn. As promised, she was engaging the King in a conversation that was not going well, though not for lack of effort on Éowyn’s part.

“And why do you say that, my Lord?” Éowyn asked, shooting Faramir a look.

“I am simply noting the difference between celebrations in Rohan and Gondor, not comparing one favorably to the other,” Aragorn said politely, but Faramir could see his brow furrow slightly.

“I did not think you were playing favorites. I was merely inquiring about the specific basis of your comparison.” Éowyn looked bored.

Faramir perceived a slight tilt of Arwen’s head, indicating that she, too, was watching and listening. Now Faramir frowned, and pushed a vegetable around his plate.

“I should like to defer to you on this matter, since your observations come through fresher eyes than mine,” Aragorn said.

Aha! Faramir thought, there go those warm words. And he looked up to see if a frost would follow.

Éowyn smiled at Aragorn and immediately his face grew more stern. Naturally, Éowyn’s smile faded a bit, then, and she replied, “in general, every celebration in Rohan is a good excuse to let one’s hair down.” Faramir watched as Aragorn’s gaze lingered on Éowyn’s flowing hair. “In Gondor, however, there are a few specific occasions where indiscretion becomes permissible: Mettarë, birthday parties…”

Faramir was pierced with the dual arrows of Éowyn’s merry glance and Aragorn’s troubled one. He stared back at Aragorn, by far the more inscrutable of the two. He had never seen Aragorn seem so awkward. Though his wife was gifted with a swift and sharp tongue, she was sparing the King of its full force tonight, and yet he retreated as if confronting a foe beyond his strength. What of it? Faramir wondered.

“Yet I know little of how the common people of Gondor celebrate their holidays,” Éowyn said, directing her attention now to Mablung, who obliged her with some stories of his rural childhood in Anorien’s “scrabble-landed gentry,” as he called it.

Aragorn continued to regard Faramir with an intensity that Faramir returned in full. Arwen touched his arm and said something to him, and Aragorn took up his glass and looked around the table. “A toast!” he proclaimed.

The King stood. “Our beloved Faramir has been a good sport tonight, letting us have some food and drink and quite a few laughs at his expense. I will not speak tonight of his value to me as Steward, for that is demonstrated daily by his service in the City and here in Ithilien. Instead, I would congratulate him on his thirty-seven years living a life of service, of intellect, and of honor. Faramir,” the King said with familiar look of intensity, “may your thirty-eighth year see you to the heights of happiness and the realization of your dearest dreams.”

Faramir felt a bit as if the King’s eyes had put him under their sway and he paused a moment to recover himself before raising his own glass. When he looked to Éowyn, she gave him a look seeking his confirmation of what she had noted earlier in the day. He nodded to her, thinking, the King only loses his eloquence for Éowyn. ‘Tis strange, indeed.

After bidding farewell to all of his guests but the King and Queen, who would be staying in the guest chamber, Faramir was returning from a storeroom to the main hallway via a small passage along the back of the house. As he neared a doorway, he heard voices coming from the library on the other side of the wall.

“You exaggerate,” the King said.

“Your eyes betray your preoccupation, husband,” the Queen’s said a little sternly. “Beware lest others also take note.”

Faramir, thinking he had stumbled upon a quarrel, quietly backed away, planning to exit the passage and walk around the house to re-enter at the front.

“It has been an age since I have let it go this far,” the King admitted.

“Perhaps it has been that long since you found a worthy object of your attention,” the Queen said, amused.

Faramir paused. Clearly they were not quarreling, or if they were, it was an old, familiar quarrel. But their words caused Faramir to overrule his discretion, and he stayed in the passageway to discover what further they had to say.

“That is not wholly true; I have many worthy friends to whom I would gladly devote my attention, were they not now scattered across the Western lands.”

“But this friend is nearby.” The Queen laughed softly, “and stirs in you something the others do not.”

“Arwen, we should not discuss this here!”

“None who are left in the house can understand what we are saying,” she said, for they were speaking in Sindarin.

“None but Faramir!” Aragorn whispered, and Faramir felt the blood rush to his head at the thought that they were trying to maneuver something behind his back.

The Queen continued, perhaps even more loudly than before, “tonight a rare opportunity is at hand. Why do you not reveal yourself? I see now that you suffer from your silence.” There was a rustling sound and the sound of a kiss. “Your isolation will only grow with your power. Better to stake a claim to the love of your friends now, before all around you come to see you as beyond their station.”

“I have already revealed too much! Faramir sees what another would not.” The King sighed in exasperation. “Do you find my reticence unsound? Explain to me, where is the flaw in my reasoning? I fear such a revelation, if met with rebuff, would undo our friendship, and that would wound me more deeply than would the oppression of this longing. And if met with…if…if my affection were welcomed, I fear it would undo his life.”

Faramir staggered backward down of the passageway and out the small door into the brisk night air. He stomped along the snowy path and into the arbor where he walked aimlessly through the stands of young trees. “Undo his life?” he thought. Whose? You know well the answer, he told himself, but doubts raged in his mind and he wished he had had the self-control to attend the rest of their conversation.

If Éowyn welcomed Aragorn’s affections, it might well undo Faramir’s life, much like ripping the green shoot of a seedling from the soil. His first month of marital bliss had not be so perfect as to erase his dread that Éowyn still might find him lacking compared to her first love. Yet he could not make the King’s words fit with that scenario. How might Éowyn’s rejection of Aragorn undo a friendship that, at least on Éowyn’s part, barely existed? Or perhaps it was his friendship with the King that would be undone when Éowyn revealed to him that Aragorn had feelings for her? And why would Arwen be encouraging this revealation?

How incomprehensible! he thought. No, not incomprehensible; I cannot deny that all the evidence taken together draws an ever clearer picture. It is not Éowyn of whom he speaks. Unthinkable! And yet he could not stop thinking of it. He walked even faster, his energy restless and irritating, replaying the conversation in his head: a worthy friend, stirs in you something the others do not, a revelation to undo a friendship or one’s life…

Faramir stopped and turned to face a cluster of tall saplings. “What do you want of me?!” he demanded of the night. He grasped a trunk in each hand and shook them violently, raining snow down upon his head. He shoved his hands into his hair to shake out the snow and gave a long half-moan, half-growl as he tossed his head backward to get the damp strands of hair out of his face. “Valar help me,” he hissed, leaning against one of the accosted saplings.

As he calmed himself, he worked through the bleak scenarios presented by the King: what would be undone if Aragorn indeed…wanted him? After probing his own mind for some minutes, Faramir was comforted when he concluded that if such were the case, and he rebuffed the King, their friendship would not be undone, for the idea that the King had a special attachment to him did not repulse him. On the contrary, when Faramir turned his attention at last to his body and his heart, which like earlier in the day ached with unsanctioned longing, he wondered if instead it was his life, just now begun, that would come undone.

² Deoflum – O.E., devil

Chapter 5 – Ardent Hearts

A night and a day had passed since King Elessar and his troops had returned from Pelargir where the King had negotiated a shaky peace with Umbar. Faramir noted that the day was ripe for a celebration for other reasons, as well. Most of the city’s families had already marked the year of mourning for loved ones that they lost in the War, and the cityfolk congratulated each other on surviving the hard winter, for it was also the first day of spring. On Faramir’s advice, the King ordered that rationing be lifted for the holiday and for the first time in months, bellies were full and ale could be found for all who wanted it.

The King’s companions stayed late in the Hall of Feasts, spending their well-earned rest on drink and song. Faramir found that the King often met his glances with an odd, wry smile. His eyes have been upon me all night, Faramir thought. I feel them burning into me even when my back is turned. Either his eyes cast a spell or there is in me a long hidden rogue spirit that torments me with a passion entirely out of place. Alas, that I suspect what is on his mind! The uncertainty, both of his own feelings and of the King’s intentions, was maddening.

Outwardly, he enjoyed himself and entertained the others with an uncharacteristically bawdy wit spurred on by the restlessness that the King had the power to produce in him. Inwardly, Faramir anticipated with anxiety the words behind the King’s looks, words that Aragorn had not yet willingly allowed Faramir to hear. He both dreaded and longed for the opportunity to see how this would be resolved, for when he had spared a moment to be troubled by these matters, his thoughts had only run him ‘round in circles.

The hour was late when all had left save Faramir, who waited to see the King safely to bed, hoping that this time, Aragorn might seize the opportunity to make his feelings known. In the weeks since his shameful eavesdropping, Faramir had been busy in Ithilien, only coming to Minas Tirith to serve in Aragorn’s stead, or to attend Council meetings, on which occasions he returned home by evening. Nothing more informative or affectionate than looks and smiles and courteous words had passed between them. If anything were to be learned ere another month or two passed, the time was nigh.

Still, the King gave no sign and they walked through the halls in silence. At the King’s chamber door, Faramir hesitated for just a moment, questioning Aragorn with his eyes, before he bowed slightly to signal his departure and turned to leave, but Aragorn stayed him with a hand on his shoulder. “Faramir, wait. I would speak to you alone,” he said softly.

Faramir’s heartbeat quickened painfully, but his resolution did not waver. He followed Aragorn into the King’s bedchamber. The room was dimly lit with but a single lantern that flickered at intervals, casting dancing shadows about the room. Faramir shut the heavy wooden door behind him and said, “yes, my Lord?”

“Whether it be the wine or another form of spirit, I know not, but something makes me loath to leave your company tonight.” Aragorn smiled and Faramir, guardedly, smiled back. “I have just arrived back to my home and therefore you are soon to depart for yours. What false wisdom guided me when I made these arrangements? Too little time am I in your company, and when you are absent, your wit and wisdom are missed.”

Faramir smiled and gathered his courage to draw out the confrontation. “I, too, have been eager to regain your company in an atmosphere more permitting of intimacy than Council meetings.”

Aragorn looked at him probingly, then laughed, a little nervously, draping an arm around Faramir’s shoulders. “Are you willing to stay a while?” Aragorn gave him an uncertain smile and squeezed his shoulder.

The closeness of the King made Faramir’s throat go dry and he feared to speak, lest his voice tremble. What was this fearsome longing arising inside him? What was this thing pulling him again, drawing him to the King?

“I am always willing to serve my King,” said Faramir, whose formality of speech disguised a revealation. For in that moment, he finally knew his heart on the matter of the King: he was indeed willing, more than willing – he was eager to serve his King.

“On all other occasions, your service has been most welcome,” Aragorn said, striding to look out over the balcony, then turning back to face Faramir. “But tonight it is not your willingness to serve I would know.”

“What would you know, my Lord? Ask and I will answer.” Faramir felt his pride drained away by his aching need to feel the King’s lips on his again, but he pushed the thought away, for he had no regrets about his pledge of love and loyalty to Éowyn. He knew he could not grant what he longed for the King to ask of him.

“I will speak plainly then,” Aragorn said, slowly crossing the room towards Faramir. “I would know your heart, my dear Faramir. You serve me well, but how do you love me?”

The word “love” caught on his heart and momentarily stopped its rhythm. “I…I love you well, my Lord. Your well-being is never far from my mind.”

Aragorn paused a few steps before Faramir, his hands clasped behind him, a small smile on his face. “Indeed, your indefatigable mind is a part of you I cherish, but do you love me only with your mind? I would have your heart as well, my friend.”

“My heart loves you well, Lord, though there are many that could say the same.” Faramir smiled.

Aragorn smiled back, then grew serious. “Well, for my part, the love of Faramir is worth that of a thousand ardent hearts,” he said with passion.

Faramir felt his knees grow weak as he contemplated the visage of his King; this thing between them was taking shape at last. His first thought was to deny himself the pleasure he took from the knowledge that the King loved him. “I am cheating fate to be allowed this affection, my Lord,” he said slowly, “and my longing for such a privilege is both arrogant and an affront to the conventions of men.”

Now Aragorn was silent for a moment, his gaze fiery upon Faramir’s face. Faramir blanched, wondering if he had read his master wrong. Then Aragorn took a quick step forward and pulled the younger man to him. “You are wrong to think that you cheat fate. My affection for you is well earned. But I must know more: you say this longing an affront to convention. Is that because you love me not just as your King, but also…?” Aragorn hesitated, then ran his hand along Faramir’s shoulder to his neck, and caressed his jaw with his thumb.

Faramir’s heart was in his throat, but he quickly said, “it is not just the conventions of men that I balk at trespassing. It is the vows of matrimony I fear to trammel in my haste to know what you would ask of me, were I free to serve you in that way.”

Aragorn gently thrust his fingers into Faramir’s hair, cupping the back of his head, and leaned into him, forehead to forehead. “Oh, Faramir,” he whispered hoarsely, “either you do not take the meaning of my words or you still do not know your worth to me.”

Faramir pulled back, mortified, unable to look the King in the eye. “I’m sorry, my Lord, if I have overstepped…”

Aragorn’s hand tilted Faramir’s chin so he could see the tenderness in his eyes. “On the contrary, my dear friend, you have not gone far enough if you think that all I seek from you is the willing service of your flesh. Did I not say that I want not your service but your love?” Aragorn pulled him close again, placing his lips gently on Faramir’s forehead, temples, and eyes.

Faramir struggled to regain his wits; his thoughts were like a tempest and Aragorn’s gentle kisses did nothing to calm the storm. “My love?” he said at last, breathing as if winded from a great climb to a dizzying height. “Indeed, Lord Aragorn, I do not take your meaning. What more of my love is there to be said? I would not have you draw me out any further into an open field without any cover or refuge, for I doubt my senses and I know not what awaits me there.”

“Dear Faramir, fear not an attack or trickery, and look not for refuge outside of your loyal friend Aragorn,” the King said, tightly embracing Faramir and whispering in his ear. “I would never have you disarmed, yet you have no need of defense against me. By speaking of love I mean to exchange with you tokens of equal value, not to pay for my pleasure with the currency of loyalty or duty.” The King took Faramir’s face in his hands and spoke in a low and quavering voice, his eyelids heavy with desire, “so if I ask for your sweet mouth, it is so that I may bestow upon it my kiss, a token of love for its master which I hope to then receive from him in kind.”

Faramir was surprised and moved by the King’s words, for such poetic sentiments were not what he had been expecting. He felt the novel pleasure of being pursued, the lure of playing the part of the seduced, and it swayed him. He then parted his lips and tenderly tasted Aragorn’s mouth. When he did so, he felt Aragorn’s hands tremble against his face. The other man’s lips were rough but yielding, and his breath was sweet to Faramir’s tongue. A soft but audible sigh escaped Faramir’s chest and, as if in reply, Aragorn’s low moan returned to his ears. The King kissed him in a slow and lingering way, pulling gently, stroking softly, lips on lips, tongue to tongue.

Then Faramir broke away from the kiss and wrenched himself from Aragorn’s arms. “I cannot, my Lord. You know I cannot,” he said firmly, but he felt miserably torn.

Aragorn sighed deeply, regaining his composure, and nodded. “You should seek your wife’s council on the matter between us. Tonight my judgment was overrun by desire and wine. I would not detain you again without her assent.”

Faramir felt a little flushed at the thought that the King might wish to ‘detain’ him again, but he felt there was little promise of that coming about. “I do not hope for such cooperation from her. I doubt we will come to any happy resolution of the problem we have laid before ourselves tonight.” And the pleasure of that kiss will be nothing but a memory to me! he thought, the agony of thwarted longing coursing through him like bitter medicine.

“But you will discuss it with her?” Aragorn pressed him.

Faramir took hold of his feelings and calmed himself. “I must. I cannot keep her unaware of what has passed between us, especially given her past feelings for you. To deceive her would injure her more deeply than the betrayal of that kiss.”

Aragorn looked at Faramir solemnly. “So she has spoken to you of her feelings for me?”

Faramir nodded. “She did, before we were betrothed. Knowing what had happened between you showed me the means to win her over, for her love for you held her to the darkness, and it was for me to show her the way to the light.”

Aragorn look worried and shook his head. “And you fear not this old business between us?”

“I do,” Faramir said, taking Aragorn’s hand, “but no more than I fear a nightmare in the light of day. The fear may rise, but it also quickly passes away.”

“May the Lady Éowyn’s attitude resemble yours in this matter,” Aragorn said, squeezing Faramir’s hand, “for my feelings for you will not so quickly pass away.”

Faramir’s heart leapt at this, but he calmly said, “I will speak to her and advise you of her will before we return to Ithilien four days hence.”

“Make it soon, if you can. I will spare my time for you whenever you ask it.”

Chapter 6 – A New Troth

With some trepidation, Faramir made his way to the guest chamber where he and Éowyn resided while at Minas Tirith. He paused at the basin to wash, then shed his clothes and slipped into bed with his bride.

She did not turn to him, but she said, “it is nearly light. Have you only just come to bed?”

“Only just,” Faramir said, softly kissing the hair on her head.

“Are you very drunk?” She asked bluntly.

Faramir chuckled into her soft and lovely hair. “No, not for several hours have I drunk wine.”

“Good. Then I shall kiss you and not fear your breath.” Éowyn turned to face him and smiled, but then the smile faded. “Faramir, what has detained you? You have not slept yet your eyes are bright. Your face looks not tired, but elated.”

“I am elated, but I am also afraid,” he said pulling her close to him.

Éowyn pulled away. “I would see your face,” she said, sitting up and pulling the covers around her bare torso. “What has elated you, and why are you afraid?”

“My fair Éowyn, it is you I fear, or your reaction to what I must tell you, because something has happened that cannot be undone.” Éowyn’s face showed a growing anger and Faramir hastened to make things clear to her. “I was with the King, Éowyn. The King detained me and is the cause of my elation.”

Éowyn’s anger turned to bemusement. “And what of it? What counsel did he seek or tidings did he bear to cause you such happiness?”

Faramir took a deep breath and also sat up, taking Éowyn’s hand and clasping it between two of his. “I know not how to begin to explain it.”

“Simply report what he said. What is there to explain? Why do you hesitate to tell me? If this encounter was the cause of joy for you, then surely such joy must also be mine to share, as we are husband and wife?”

Faramir looked at her and felt his heart would burst. He caressed her cheek lovingly. “May it be so that you will share in my joy, but that it may not be so checks my speech. Very well, I will do as you ask and report what was said, but I ask you to forbear judging until I have explained my part.”

Éowyn nodded. “I will hold my tongue, for now.”

“My Lord and I spoke of love, a subject which may be especially tender for you, given who was discussing it.” He saw poor Éowyn grow a little pale, but he went on. “Do not doubt that you were on both our minds during this discussion, for you are the gem of my heart and the King holds you in highest regard. Yet it was not of you that we spoke, nor of the Queen,” Faramir hastened to add, guessing his wife’s thoughts, “but of our love. The King asked me how my heart loved him, and I spoke truly when I said I loved him well, but he sought yet another meaning in me, and that meaning did he find, as did I find it in him.”

“And what meaning was that?” Éowyn asked quietly.

“I know not how to explain it other than to tell you that with great tenderness, the King sought to know if I wished to love him…with my flesh.”

Éowyn was breathing rapidly and her face became flushed. “Make haste to explain your part, Faramir, for anon my tongue will be loosed.”

“I will do my best, but please calm yourself,” he pled in vain. “I myself am only now coming to understand my part of this, so perhaps my telling will help us both make sense of how the unthinkable has come to pass.”

“A year ago, when I lay under the veil of death, my mind was poisoned by the darkness. I looked not to die, but when I searched my thoughts, I found nothing to live for. Everyone I loved was lost to me, and my city was falling. It was the end of all that was good, or so said the shadow cast upon me by the servants of the Dark One.” Faramir rubbed the scar where the Southron arrow had pierced him.

“And then I heard a voice, calling my name,” Faramir continued, “and that voice sounded to me like hope itself. Again, the voice called my name, and my heart sprang up, and then again, I heard my name, and I felt a force like a lifeline drawing me out of the darkness. There, in my mind, without seeing, without any of the physical senses, I knew him, and he knew me. Then I felt my hand in his hand, his hand on my forehead. I opened my eyes, and I knew his face, and loved it, and asked for my King’s command.”

Éowyn leapt out of bed and donned her dressing gown. She paced by the foot of the bed and muttered bitterly, “the same hand drew us both back. But unlike you, death was my very purpose. His voice called me back to nothing but pain.”

“Would that I never were to remind you of those darkest of days, my love! But since then, I know you have rediscovered your love for life. I fear my words will wound you anew, but I trust in the light of your spirit, and so I must say that this feeling inside me first stirred by Aragorn’s healing touch has been growing, even as has my love for you.”

Éowyn stopped her pacing and stood stock still, facing away from Faramir. He paused to see if she would speak, but she did not.

“This powerful connection has been pulling me to him, and perhaps it is this same force that also draws him to me. At first I feared this force for some spell at work on me, but now I know it is born of the moment we met in our minds. And it is a good thing, I feel, a thing that will make us stronger, for it comes of a lofty passion between men like of mind and kindred of spirit. When he revealed his love to me, so strong was my response that I gave in to passion and our lips met. But when I broke off our kiss, he bade me seek your council and his suggestion was well taken, for I would not ease this pain with the balm of falsehood.” Faramir paused, staring at his wife’s narrow back, the battle between hope and fear raging inside him. “I bid thee, speak, my love.”

Éowyn’s voice sounded small, as if carried to Faramir’s ears from Rohan by the winds of the White Mountains. “We are not yet married a season. Has the blossom of our love faded so soon?”

Faramir then went to her. Her eyes were cold and he dared not touch her, but he stood naked before her, chilled and trembling. “Our love is but in its infancy. I wish to nurture it and bless it with long life.”

“Then why seek another? You speak as if some mighty and magical thing has happened, but is this not just a weakness of the flesh on your part? Or perhaps this is on me, not my weakness but my strength, which you take for hardness of heart? Believe you not that I love you?” Her voice was more demanding than pleading.

Faramir’s pity for her stabbed in his chest, and he struggled with the words to make her understand. “There is nothing you lack that I need, and there is nothing missing in me because of you. I sought this not, yet it was a welcome gift. Much as the arrival of a child does not weaken the love of its parents, but rather makes them more of who they were destined to be, so does this love of Aragorn feel to me now. Would that you did not feel lessened by it, or fear that it strikes a blow at our love. I would never risk your faith in such a battle. So tell me now – if I must renounce the love of Aragorn to preserve your happiness, I will do it without hesitation.”

Éowyn appeared thoughtful now and guided Faramir back to bed. “You will get a chill. Lie under the covers,” she commanded, but she stood above him, looking at him in a manner he could not discern.

“Such unpleasant choices you present me with, and yet you look at me with the hope of a child,” she said scornfully, but her eyes were shining with something Faramir could not fathom. “Whence this faith that I will not choose to set you free from the ties that bind us? Do I seem to you a woman of infinite patience and understanding?”

“That I know you not to be,” Faramir confessed, “yet faith I have.”

“Indeed, you are playing to my faults! I am a woman of great passions, and my restraint has been sorely tested in a past not yet beyond remembering. I will not again live as a bird in a cage! I will not serve a cause another has chosen for me!”

Faramir slowly nodded, feeling a deep longing to soothe his wife, yet knowing she would not receive it well. “You must choose your own path. I have always known it would be thus.”

Éowyn’s emotions seemed to have run their course for the moment. Long Faramir held her gaze and many thoughts he saw pass behind her eyes.

When she spoke again, she said, “you are ardent and unrepentant. Ardently you love the King, and rejoice at his affection for you. Though some might count this unnatural, you have my sympathy because the attraction exerted by that man is something I well understand with my own heart,” she paused, taking up a different thought, “though my poor heart be pierced again, seemingly unintended – yet, for the second time! — by the King. If, for the sake of Arwen, he forsook me, how is it that he does not also forsake you? This question is cruel and it troubles me. Know you the answer?”

“Nay, I do not. We did not speak of it,” said Faramir.

“As for your lack of repentance, do you perceive that you broke no troth in offering yourself to another? Do you excuse yourself from your vows because his is a man? Because he is King?”

“It was my troth to you that drove me from his arms and back to your bed to confess all that I said, did and felt. If that is not enough, you should punish me as you see fit, for I do hold our vows sacred.”

Éowyn’s voice rose. “Do you mean to assuage my jealousy by saying that your vows stayed at least the lust of your hands, if not of your heart? That is cold comfort indeed. What sense is there in these words you play with so coyly? You shall not turn my mind from its own course with your novel reasoning about the nature of love.” She looked at him steadily, her mind clearly at work untangling itself from what she thought Faramir wanted of her. Faramir feared her harsh judgment was about to be pronounced, but then her chin rose, and her head turned to the first ray of sun coming through the window.

“I have my own reasoning,” she said, more calmly, “and perhaps we are well matched, for I am sure that others would consider it novel, indeed. You will owe me a penalty for this breach of fidelity, but first I would know: what are my rights in your Kingdom as a wronged woman?” she asked.

“You may divorce me, as you well know.”

She shook her head, still gazing out the window. “Nay, ‘twould be distasteful to me to have you removed from my bed, for you are fairer than the other men high-born enough to take your place.”

Faramir barely suppressed a laugh. He could now see that Éowyn’s reason had indeed dictated her own approach to this matter, though he could not yet discern what that approach would be. “Then you may release me from my old troth and ask me for a new one so that we may start anew.”

Éowyn nodded, trying not to smile. “Yes, that option suits me well.” She turned to face Faramir again. “Clearly this situation requires a new pledge that takes into account the…unusual situation you find yourself in.”

The thought that Éowyn might actually tolerate this “unusual situation” made Faramir break out in a sweat, so he threw off the blanket to cool himself. Éowyn stared at his naked form with a calculated desire in her eyes. “I am curious to hear, Faramir, what would you pledge to me of your own free will, had you no fear of wounding, or losing, my heart?”

Faramir felt the thrill of his wife’s will challenging him, her mind proving again its agility. He would not stand before her as a groom takes unto him his bride, but rather kneel before her and pledge himself to her as a servant to his lord. He rose to retrieve his sword and placed its tip on the ground before him. Clasping its hilt, he knelt before her and said, “here do I swear loyalty and love to you, Éowyn, daughter of Éomund. I hold to all that I have pledged to you in the past: to share all that is mine with you and no other,” here he took a deep breath, “unless you will it to be so.”

Éowyn bit down on her lip thoughtfully, then exclaimed, “what unusual pledges do the men of Gondor make! I accept your pledge and now I must also renew my pledge to you.” Éowyn then knelt on the floor, grasping the sword hilt around Faramir’s hands and staring him straight in the eyes. “I, Éowyn, daughter of Eomund, swear love and loyalty to you, my husband, and promise to hold to all that I have pledged to you in the past: to share all that is mine with you and no other, unless you will it to be so.”

Faramir felt a flash of fear pass quickly up his spine.

Éowyn stood and smirked down at him, pleased at having made sport of him. “There. Now we have come to an understanding.” Then Faramir wondered: was it sport she was making, or was her pledge in earnest?

Faramir threw down the sword and pulled Éowyn down on the bed with him, but she pushed him away. “Yes, this morning you are full of desire, since you forbore sharing yourself with the other now in question. However, I will have you know my will in this matter. In the future, I will not have you come to my bed, your manhood spent on another! You have known others before me…”

“You know that not!” Faramir interjected.

Éowyn cast him a look that asked if he thought her a fool. “…while I have known no other man but you. I am a new bride and my hunger is renewed each time I lay eyes on the fine form of my husband. Am I, just coming into the flower of my womanhood, to be left wilting in a window box while my gardener showers another with his love?”

Éowyn’s wit delighted Faramir and gradually her eyes, which had been casting upon him a light of stern reprimand, began to hint at a smile.

“You must be capable of slaking my thirst as well as that of the King,” Éowyn stated finally. “Should my fertile rows lay fallow, you will find me petitioning you for the lease of these lands to a more capable gardener. Legolas has greener thumbs and a fairer face than even you, my love,” she reminded him.

This confirmed for Faramir that though she was jesting now, her pledge had been earnest.

“Now,” said Éowyn, “I believe you still owe me a penalty for your wayward heart and wanton behavior, but I will ask that it be paid in installments. The few tales of love between men I have heard seemed to me folly, at best, but you and the King are not the likes of men who play at foolishness, so I would know more fully the nature of what passes between you.”

“What would you have me tell, my love? I will withhold nothing.”

Éowyn released her gown to the floor and slid under the covers, hovering close to Faramir, smiling into his eyes with girlish glee. “Read you not my intentions, husband? You may start your penance today by telling me what it was like to kiss the King!”

Chapter 7 – A Lamp is Lit

As Faramir poured out his tale beginning from the kiss before their wedding, he found that every detail of the strange game he and the King had played both agitated and aroused his young wife, so that he had to bring her to pleasure in the telling. When he was finally allowed to rest, he slept for a few hours but he had to rise before long to attend the Council meeting. When he arrived, Damrod had just begun briefing the Council on the latest round of borderland skirmishes with Sauron’s stragglers. Faramir took his place at Aragorn’s side, nodding in greeting to his uncle, Prince Imrahil, on Aragorn’s opposite side, and whispering to the King, “apologies, Lord.” Aragorn’s eyes twinkled every so slightly and he nodded in response.

When Aragorn arose to lay out the plans for the new defenses, Faramir was careful not to let the warmth of his newly acknowledged feelings for the King cloud his judgment and he managed to find some faults with what Aragorn proposed, for though Aragorn was in full command of the knowledge of Gondor’s forces, Faramir still had the advantage of his recent decades of service giving him superior knowledge of tactics.

The next topic raised by the King, however, chilled Faramir’s lingering warmth utterly.

“We have just passed a year when every heart in the land has mourned the loss of a loved one,” the King said gravely, “and though our grief still weighs on us heavily, we must turn our attention to the future of this land and her people. So many men did we loose, yet feeding the mouths that remained this winter has exhausted our stores. Has anyone thoughts on the matter of how we will find the hands to turn the soil for the spring planting? Another season of fallow fields will finish us.”

Faramir presented a proposal for the reallocation of labor that he had developed based on his studies of agriculture and demography following the devastation of the Great Plague, but some of the other lords suggested that he should develop this plan further before they approved it. Still, he could tell that the King was pleased with his work and would support his recommendations.

When the council broke at midday, Faramir went to the room off the main kitchen where informal meals were taken by the men of the citadel. When he was nearly finished, Aragorn arrived to take some soup and bread. Faramir, though delighted at the sight of the King, concealed it from the eyes of the other men at the table.

“Faramir, are you well?” the King asked.

“I am. And you?” Faramir replied, buttering a slice of bread.

“Quite well, thank you.” Aragorn placed a pinch of salt in his bowl and sat to dine. “And how is your wife?”

Faramir smiled, but just a little. “In an interesting humor, my Lord. And how is the Queen?”

Aragorn nodded. “Constant as the sun.”

Both men then smiled into their bowls of soup.

Faramir rose to leave. “I have to speak to some merchants about reestablishing a market town in Ithilien, but when I am done I would advise you of some news.”

“You will find me in my study,” Aragorn replied.

“Until then, my Lord.” Faramir gave a slight bow and departed. When he returned to the Citadel, the sun was casting long shadows on its courtyard. He sought out the King.

Aragorn was seated in a large leather chair by a west-facing window in the study, a ledger book open on the table in front of him. His head, however, rested against the window casement and he appeared to be asleep. The setting sun placed copper glints in his hair and his rough face had grown peaceful. Faramir’s love for Aragorn coursed through him like a draught of strong spirits, making his head turn and his legs weaken. He leaned against the doorway for support, gazing at Aragorn’s noble beauty and wondering if he had not just imagined the King’s words of the night before.

“I am being watched,” Aragorn said groggily, without moving. “During my long years as a ranger, I learned to sleep with my eyes open,” he explained.

“Your eyes are closed, my Lord,” Faramir pointed out.

“That’s precisely what I wanted you to think!” Aragorn stirred at last, blinking his eyes and rubbing his temple where it had rested against the wood. “Whence this fatigue, as if I had not slept for a day?” He flashed Faramir a sly grin. “Enter. Sit,” the King said, gesturing to the chair on the opposite side of the ledger table.

Faramir entered the study and sat, and the warm sun shining through the window filled him with some of the languor that had overtaken his Lord earlier. “Ooh, I am weary! I also feel as if I slept not, yet I took a good two, perhaps three hours rest after the sun was already in the sky.”

“And why did you not take your rest beginning from dawn?” Aragorn asked quietly.

“My wife awoke and I had some business to trouble her with,” Faramir paused and looked to Aragorn, who was seeming to attend to the ledger book. “And indeed she was troubled, but in the end, she found strange comfort in this same trouble and we came to a solution for the problem. But in repayment for her trouble, I was bade to stay awake yet another hour, making reparations.”

The King burst out laughing, and Faramir smiled wryly. “Your wife is a spirited warrior of Rohan. She will no doubt take it out of your hide should you trouble her so again,” Aragorn said in a light tone.

“Nay, Lord,” Faramir said, and at last the King’s eyes were upon him, searching his face, and he felt aglow with the light of their full attention. Despite the pretense of indifference Aragorn was playing out, Faramir could see that the anticipation of his next words was arousing a keen agitation in the King. “My lady is wise beyond her years and strong in her faith. This trouble she will bear, and with little strife.”

The King audibly let out a long breath. “Oh, I am glad to hear of it,” he said softly. Then he returned his attention to the ledger. “Our wives are a part of us and any burden on them weighs just as heavily on us.”

Faramir regarded his King’s demeanor and thought on the meaning of his words. What was the Queen’s part in this? he wondered, and what of Éowyn’s question?

“Their burdens are ours,” Faramir said, barely above a whisper. “and likewise, our joy is also theirs. Éowyn said it herself.”

“Did she?” Aragorn said, glancing up and looking pleased. “She never fails to surprise me.”

While the King scanned columns of numbers, Faramir gazed out at the clouds alit by the setting sun, lavender and pink and orange across the southwestern sky.

“And tonight?” Aragorn asked softly, still facing the ledger.

“I should get a good night’s sleep in my own bed, but in the evening, I will come to you, if you wish,” Faramir said quietly.

“I do wish it,” Aragorn looked up at him with longing in his eyes. He looked back down. “What will Éowyn do this evening?”

“She is paying a visit to some horse traders from Rohan to make arrangements to supply our stables. One of them is a distant cousin and he has invited her to dine with them at the inn.”

“No doubt to indulge in the cheer of Rohan with its most famous Lady!” Aragorn smiled fondly.

“No doubt. She misses her home, her old home, and she tires of dining with members of the court. She says their manners fatigue her.” Faramir grinned wryly, knowing Aragorn was sympathetic. “And you? Will your wife similarly give you your freedom again tonight?”

“She will.” Aragorn at last shut the ledger book, leaned back in his chair and took a pipe and some leaf from a wooden box on the table. He lit the pipe and puffed thoughtfully for a moment.

Faramir found himself wondering how Aragorn’s mouth tasted after smoking and he felt his face flush. Oh, to be that pipe! he thought hazily, or no, the lips! Yes, to be the lips…

“Elves see things differently than men,” the King explained, “and for them the span of time expands so that almost nothing in the lives of men is of much importance. Only the largest of issues in a man’s life make an impression on an Elf: war, illness, birth…and death. Death they are fair interested in.”

Faramir noticed that the sun had set; the room was getting dim. He leaned forward onto the table. “And love?” he asked, struggling to push away his lustful thoughts about Aragorn’s lips.

Aragorn let out a long stream of smoke. “Love, well, love for them either is or it is not. Now that Legolas is working with you in Ithilien, you may have observed that, though he be older than the trees he tends, he claims he has never found anyone he wished to marry.”

Faramir smiled sadly. “Boromir was of like mind, though he was still young and might have…”

“He would have. It was his duty.”

Faramir nodded.

Aragorn looked at him with sympathy, and then smiled wryly. “Once an Elf has bonded with another, it is forever. So you can see why the Elves seem so tranquil. All events are on a different scale with them. If it is love, then what difference is a night or a fortnight apart? I myself had a nearly 40 year betrothal!”

Faramir laughed now, shaking his head. “Yes, but the Queen…” he hesitated, concerned that his inquiry was too personal. “Perhaps her attitude will change now.”

Aragorn shrugged, “it might eventually, but this Elvish lack of concern with all that does not merit concern – this is a deep-rooted habit and it would be difficult, and probably unhealthful, to change it.”

Faramir thought back to the overheard conversation that had so troubled him several weeks before. “The Queen’s attitude will not change, will it?” he asked Aragorn, recalling her outright encouragement. “For this is somehow part of her design.”

Aragorn raised his eyebrows and nodded, searching Faramir’s face in the last light of the evening sky. “She sees much and tells me that only good can come of expanding my heart by loving another. I have learned her wisdom in this and cherish love wherever it may be found. But you are more right than you know, for she indeed sees in this something that is part of a larger pattern, though she would not claim the design as her own.”

Faramir fixed Aragorn with his gaze, feeling a slow building heat in his groin as the King’s eyes locked on to his. “I think I begin to see the shape of this constellation, where the stars lie and how they burn,” Faramir said, his voice low and smooth.

Aragorn’s look was frank and admiring. “Good. Tell me what you see.”

Faramir sat back in his chair. “By your leave, I will tell it in a song. It is a song the like of which are sung at the end of the night in taverns, but you will tell me if it does not fit the likes of Kings, as well.”

And Faramir sang, very softly:

If in a true heart your love does lie
But that heart is bade to roam
Feed not your fear that love might die
But make your own heart love’s home.
For even if your wanderer’s fate
A lover’s path does cross
He knows at home his love awaits
And nothing will be lost.
Love does not love diminish
When faith and hearts are true
And all will in the finish
Love best when much love they knew.

Faramir could barely see Aragorn’s face in the darkness, but it looked like he was smiling. A voice from the doorway called out, “m’lord, shall I light a lamp?”

“Yes, please, Clarkill,” Aragorn said, stretching his limbs. “Lord Faramir is entertaining me and I lost track of time.”

The old woman lit two lamps, placing one on the table and one on the fireplace mantle.

“Shall I sing you another one, my Lord?” Faramir asked politely.

Clarkill clucked her tongue. “Perhaps you should sing him the one about supper being ready and everyone waiting in the dining room for the King to join them.”

Aragorn smiled. “Very well, Clarkill. After supper, then?” Aragorn asked, and Faramir nodded with a shy smile on his face.

Chapter 8 – Of Love and Valor

Faramir quietly went down the hallway he knew intimately from childhood and he made sure that no one watched or heard as he slipped into the King’s chamber. For a moment after he entered, Aragorn just stared at him, with an anxious look in his eye, but then he approached Faramir and tentatively took him into his embrace. The King looked into his eyes once more and Faramir saw there a mixture of fear and hope that mirrored his own. “Do you really…” Aragorn faltered.

“Kiss me again, Lord, and I will answer you without words,” Faramir said, his voice husky.

After the exchange of many sweet kisses that grew increasingly savory as their bodies sought to press closer and closer together, Faramir’s passions were aroused. But the strangeness of his desire frightened him, so when Aragorn made to undo his clothing, he became overwrought and broke away, seeking a drink of water from a pitcher near the door. He felt as if a serpent of fire had uncoiled inside him and was compelling him into the arms of the King. It was not like ordinary passion and it was all the more troubling that he felt it for a man. He gulped down another cup of water, eyeing Aragorn warily.

“My Lord,” Faramir eventually said, “you have overcome me! Scores of battles have I fought as a Captain of Gondor, yet you have vanquished me with a few kisses. Have mercy on your poor soldier, who struggles with a foe untold of in the tales of old.”

“What foe, my friend?” Aragorn laughed, approaching Faramir and gently grasping his shoulder. “Seek you yet proof of some hidden design?”

He took the measure of the other man for a moment, and steered his thoughts into calmer waters. “Nay, Lord,” Faramir smiled, “the foe is not in thee, but in me. For in me grows a great force, whose powers I fear.” He looked deeply into Aragorn’s eyes,” Whence comes this force and how will I know its nature, be it friend or foe?”

Aragorn drew closer, so their bodies were almost touching. “How does any mortal discern such matters? We search our feelings, consult our reason…” He closed his eyes, inviting a kiss.

Faramir placed a hand on Aragorn’s chest; his heart was pounding heavily. “And we seek to follow the path of the mighty who have fallen before us. Did not the legends of your ancestors drive you hard on the road to glory? Would passion and reason alone have sustained you in the struggle against the dark?”

Aragorn’s eyes were keen in searching Faramir’s face. He looked pleased and intrigued with the question. “Indeed not,” he replied. “For passion would have bade me stay in Rivendell to dwell with my beloved, and reason would have defeated me in setting hope against hope.”

“As for me,” Faramir said, “an unexpected passion drives me to your arms and I find reason to be strangely lacking in its objections, for if neither we nor our wives have any complaint, the reason of convention seems less compelling.”

“So let reason be, gentle Faramir,” Aragorn said, his lips drawing their breath just above the side of Faramir’s neck, “and give passion its due.” A moan of assent escaped Faramir’s lips and Aragorn kissed him deeply and long held him in a fiery embrace. He led Faramir to his bed and there they lay, undoing each other’s clothes with no little haste.

They each gazed at and caressed the other’s body, then Aragorn moved atop him, leaving a trail of kisses down his bare chest, and Faramir again felt unrest and struggled with his thoughts about the nature of these acts. Aragorn extracted his moans by caressing his hardness but then he gasped, “no, Lord!”

Aragorn looked at him in surprise. Faramir escaped his embrace and leapt up from the bed. The King stifled his laughter at this new burst of agitation, his eyes ravishing Faramir’s bare skin. “What now, my agile friend? Share your thoughts with me.”

Aragorn sat up on the edge of the bed and immediately Faramir knelt at his feet, clasping the King’s hands in his. “My Lord, many songs are now sung about you, praising both your valiant deeds and your enduring love for Queen Arwen. And even of me, songs are sung about the new alliance between Gondor and Rohan, cemented by my love for Éowyn.”

Understanding, the King nodded gravely. “But no song shall ever pass the lips of the men of this world telling the tale of the love between the King and his Steward, nor has any such tale ever been told.”

Faramir gazed up at Aragorn, feeling the King could see into his very soul.

“Rise, dear Faramir, and tell me why this troubles you.”

Faramir stood and walked to the balcony window. “Can valor be found in a love that needs must remain unsung?” he asked of the stars.

Aragorn approached behind him, slipping his arms around Faramir’s waist and nestling their heads side by side. The King gazed also out at the stars, seeming to consider the answer to Faramir’s question. “If valor lies in the esteem of the people, then indeed we are pursuing an unworthy path. But does not valor lie in the deed itself? Must a man’s actions be judged in order for them to be great?”

Faramir felt the world had reversed itself, that water flowed uphill, that the sun rose in the west, and that it all made perfect sense. He turned to face the King, still wrapped in his arms, saying, “and if a man offers another a precious gift, is its worth diminished because others would not so value it? Is the measure…” The King gazed at him with such a tender look that Faramir lost his words.

Aragorn pressed his advantage and swiftly kissed those now stilled lips. “Faramir,” he whispered, caressing Faramir’s hair, “what you offer me is indeed an inestimable gift, one so precious I almost dared not hope for it. Now come, if your mind be soothed at last, and let us just rest in each other’s company a little while longer. It seems you need more time to reflect on whether you want from me what I desire from you.”

Feeling a strange mixture of relief and disappointment, Faramir let the King lead him back to bed. Then they lay together, their unclothed bodies warm where they touched and cool where kissed by the air.

This bed is no different from my own, Faramir thought, but I feel as if lost in a foreign land. And here is my King to guide me, yet still my heart is faint. It is not I who offer him a precious gift, but he who grants me the honor of his affection, and still I do not fully accept this boon because…why? I know full well the difference between law and morality, and I have always been able to interpret right and wrong through the lens of my own judgment. So how do I judge myself but as a coward for not daring to defy convention when I have searched my heart and found it willing, searched my conscience and found it clear? Every fiber in me aches to know his pleasure, and yet here I lay still, stricken by my thoughts. He is too gentle with me!

“Lord Aragorn,” Faramir whispered, pleadingly.

“Yes, my love,” Aragorn answered, piercing Faramir’s heart with his words.

“I would have you move me. Lend me your passion to subdue my reason,” Faramir said, his voice breaking.

And with that, the King was upon him, devouring his skin with mouth and hands. And again, Faramir felt the fearsome power within him began to grow, the wild force which he hoped Aragorn would help him tame.

Faramir lost himself in the sensations of a man’s touch. Aragorn’s beard tickled Faramir’s skin and his hands were rough and strong, confident of what they were after. When Faramir’s hand sought Aragorn’s firmness, the King thrust into him with abandon. Grasping Aragorn’s sex caused such a great longing to fill his chest that Faramir whispered roughly, “my Lord, now let me serve you!” Aragorn’s sex in his mouth was both exciting and frightening. He took Aragorn deeply and vigorously, adoring the gentle pressure of his Lord’s hand atop his head, thrilling at the low moans his lips and tongue were inducing, and in the end, he felt Aragorn’s spasms of pleasure deep within his own groin.

When Aragorn bade his head back to the pillow, Faramir exclaimed, “how is it that I find such satisfaction in something I had not before thought to even want?”

Aragorn caressed his face. “Have you never desired another man?”

Faramir shook his head. “Not like this. But you have,” he guessed.

Aragorn smiled. “Yes, but it has been rare that circumstance and conscience allowed me to share myself in this way with another man. Rarer still is what I now feel…” He kissed Faramir softly and Faramir’s body, still tense with unsated desire, surged toward Aragorn’s.

“And with women, it is not a question of desire, or even conscience, but of duty,” Aragorn continued, kissing Faramir’s face and neck. “I have lived many years and suffered from love for more women than Arwen alone, but a man who would be king has to be very cautious in spending his seed on a woman not his wife.”

Faramir laughed and said, “I am afraid I have not been entirely cautious in that regard, though enough so that I am certain I have no heirs lurking about. Of course, it was not so important then… It is curious. Though others might judge that to lie with another man is dishonorable, is there any more honor when they lie with a woman for whom they have no love?” His eyes narrowed a bit as he thought on it. “Surely not. It is not love but debauchery we despise; weakness of the flesh, not the joy of hearts in union.”

Aragorn pressed his forehead against Faramir’s and ran his fingers deep into the other’s hair. “My philosopher-poet, mmm,” Aragorn growled, “you awaken every part of me.”

Faramir sighed, feeling as if in a slight swoon. “What is your pleasure, my Lord?” he asked, caressing Aragorn’s back.

“Indulge me in the pleasure you have just taken from me,” said the King, who then drove Faramir to gasping fits with sharp nibbles to his chest and a swift stroking hand elsewhere. Then the King’s lips blazed a trail down Faramir’s belly, and his tongue descended deep into his nether regions.

“No, my Lord!” Faramir exclaimed when Aragorn’s lips gently cupped his tender flesh. “You shouldn’t!”

Aragorn chuckled softly. “I shall and I will. Do not presume to know what is fitting for a King and I will show you what I know of how love is given between men.”

As Aragorn tenderly caressed him with his tongue, Faramir felt set aloft, so he drove his hands into his Lord’s hair to hold him fast to the earth. Though the pleasure was intense, it also felt profoundly strange to look down and see the King’s mouth encircling him. As he, too swiftly, reached his highest pleasure, his moans culminated in a cry: “Oh, Aragorn!”

After a few moments, Aragorn’s face was beside him, smiling playfully. “You called me by my name.”

Faramir started. “I did?”

Aragorn nodded. “You cried out, ‘Aragorn.’”

“Does that not please you?” Faramir teased. “Would you have me cry out, ‘oh, my beloved King!’ in my moment of need?”

Aragorn lay his head on Faramir’s chest and laughed. “That would not do,” he agreed. After a few moments, he added, “Indeed, I crave the chance to be Aragorn with you, so please do not think of me as King Elessar.”

Faramir smiled sadly, wishing it could indeed be so.

Chapter 9 – Éowyn’s Hunger

The next day Faramir was preoccupied with complaints from the settlers of Ithilien about the lack of roads, supplies, attention, and so on that Minas Tirith was able to provide them, with demands on his time by various lords of the Council hoping to have him bend the ear of the King on their behalf, and other matters which, in short, distracted him from his heart’s desire, which was to return to the library to conduct more research on the farmlands of Gondor. He needed concrete acreage estimates to match with the troop size numbers, and more data on transit times between military posts and major agricultural centers.

At supper time he entered the formal dining hall, where he saw Arwen in her chair at the head of the table. He bowed slightly to the Queen and she smiled at him in a knowing way that made him blush a little. But then he saw that Éowyn’s chair was empty, so Faramir asked the Queen’s leave and went to seek his wife. He found her in their chamber, gazing out the window with the glass thrown wide open, a cold breeze ruffling her hair.

“Darling, you’ll catch a chill” Faramir exclaimed, reaching to shut the window.

“Stop,” Éowyn commanded, holding her hand against the open window. “I want to smell the spring air.”

Faramir grabbed a cloak from the wardrobe and draped it around her shoulders. “You were not at dinner.”

Éowyn shook her head. “I could not go.”

“Because of Aragorn?” Faramir asked, fearing that his hopes were turning false.

Éowyn shot him a spiteful look that then softened. “It is true that I wished not to see him, to question him with my eyes and receive his cool stare in reply. But that is not why I did not attend dinner. I simply cannot bear to be around these courtiers another day! I must return to our home where I can be of some use. I will leave tomorrow. I cannot live another day in this tomb of a city.”

Faramir frowned, for there was yet another day before he could depart. It hurt him that Éowyn did not yet love the city of his birth, but more than that, he detected in her words the recurring darkness that had dogged her days for over a year now. Concerned, he laid his hand upon his wife’s forehead.

“I am not ill!” she insisted.

“No, but you are not wholly well, either. Did your thoughts dwell on your Uncle today? Did you spend long hours looking, as you are now, towards the Pelennor Fields?”

“I did. This day I have been utterly useless and lost to the world,” she confessed. After a moment, Faramir saw a tear run down Éowyn’s cheek. She roughly wiped it away. “How many homes of this land have been taken by fire, and how many have lived a hard year mourning their master?” she asked sorrowfully. “Hundreds of women and children with nowhere else to go passed the winter in the shelter of the crumbling walls of this city. The lands are scorched, the towns are ruined…” she took a deep, ragged breath.

Faramir reached out to touch her cheek, but she grabbed his hand and pulled him to her. “There is so much to do! We must rebuild our world, and sow new life,” she said with great intensity, fixing Faramir with the blue fire of her eyes.

Faramir felt his pulse race and a thrill shudder through him as his wife stood up from the window ledge and grasped his shoulders. She was so beautiful and fierce, he felt she could slay him with a look.

“For the love of this land and those we have lost, we must make new life,” Éowyn said, and kissed Faramir passionately.

Faramir swept her up in his arms and lay them both down in the bed. Éowyn’s fingers tore at his clothes and her teeth scraped his neck. Faramir found it arousing and not a little frightening trying to subdue her. He pinned her beneath his weight and kissed her, his tongue diving deep into her mouth. He bit down hard on the place where her neck met her shoulder and she let out a cry, and, holding her by her wrists, he slid down to gently bite her left nipple through her gown. “Faramir!” she cried out, and then as a command, “I need you now! Take me now!”

Faramir felt lost in a frenzy like he had never known with his wife, with whom he had ever been gentle. Quickly he released himself from his breeches and shoved Éowyn’s skirts around her waist. As swiftly as he could, he rid her of her underclothes. She was moaning through her teeth in impatience when he finally found himself flung on top of her and plunging his sex all at once inside her.

“Aaa-aaah!” Éowyn yelled, clawing at his back. “Yes, yes, my love,” she gasped as he drove into her.

A part of Faramir felt he was watching their lovemaking through a cloud, and he wondered at this animal force that possessed them both. He heard himself grunting with each deep thrust, and he felt himself digging his teeth into the velvet cloth on her arm in response to her brutal touch that ripped the shoulder seam of his shirt.

Éowyn’s cries were long howls, punctuated by what sounded like sobs, though Faramir saw no tears. Faramir thought to hold back and slow the pace, but Éowyn’s hands were on his hips, pulling him in faster and faster.

“More, more!” she said, her face clenched in a grimace. “Ayii! Ara – mir, oh, Faramir,” she sobbed.

Faramir felt his heart stop for just a moment, as if it were helping him listen for what he thought he just heard. But when he slowed, Éowyn brought her legs down from around his waist and, planting her feet, thrust up at him.

“Do not stop, my love, do not slacken your pace,” she demanded in a harsh whisper.

At the sound of her words, Faramir felt a column of fire engulf him, and he felt his need darken to match the hunger of his wife. Roughly, he flipped Éowyn over onto her stomach and, laying his nearly full weight on her back, he took her again and wrought from her such screams that she had to stifle them in the pillow. At last he felt he was nearing his peak, and he punctuated his thrusts with whispers into Éowyn’s ear: “we – will – live!” he gasped. As he released into her, Faramir’s cry arose from deep within him but trailed off into a whimper.

Faramir buried his face in the soft fabric on his wife’s back and let out a few sobs, feeling drained and caught between the past and the future. Far from driving away Éowyn’s sadness, he had drawn it into himself and called to his mind many thoughts best left behind. Grief weighed him down and he felt again the touch of the shadow, though it was only a memory. Éowyn moved out from under him and cradled his head on her breast, but he felt she had no comfort to spare for him. After but a few moments, Éowyn was on top of him, rubbing herself against him, her eyes still hungrily searching his face. He knew not what she sought. He was bereft.

Éowyn removed Faramir’s shirt and showered his inert body with kisses, stroking his nipples with her tongue. He tried to push her off, “it is too soon, love. Let me finish you,” he said weakly, but she then grabbed his arms and pinned them to the bed.

“I need you,” she said, rubbing her entire body against his, the velvet of her dress softly caressing his bare skin. “I need you more, again,” and she dropped down between his legs and gently cradled his limp flesh in her mouth, softly licking, delicately sucking, until she felt his response.

Faramir felt the room start to turn and he tried to take long, deep breaths to steady himself. He knew all was not right with her and he thought he should stop her, but he desired her so! His wife’s fiery mouth worked on him until she could take him again. Straddling his hips, she drove down on him with all her weight, and she ground herself against him until she let out a series of guttural sobs. Then she was ferocious again, using her nails and teeth on his arms, neck and chest, and Faramir felt he was making love to a ghost who wanted to take him with her to the grave.

He grabbed her arms and pulled her down to face him. “Éowyn,” he said sharply, frightened by her. “I love you,” and he put his hand on the back of her head and gently guided her lips to his. “Very soon, you will feel whole again, I promise,” he murmured into her mouth.

Éowyn rolled off him and lay on her back. Faramir curled himself around her, and pulled the covers over both of them, for the window was still open. Éowyn lay very still now, gazing up at the ceiling and spoke not, and Faramir knew that she had yet to be fully healed. And, perhaps, so had he.

Chapter 10 – A Call to Duty

Early the next morning, Éowyn’s preparations for departure woke Faramir before he was fully rested. She had donned her riding gear and looked boyishly handsome in the dim blue light. “Are you departing anon?” he asked sleepily. When he tried to rise, he realized his body ached.

“I want to ride with the dawn today. I will ask a porter to fetch my trunk and yours tomorrow,” she said, hoisting a large leather pouch over her shoulder, “and I will take some food from the kitchen so that I may break the fast by the river.”

Faramir stumbled into his dressing gown and went to gently embrace his wife. “May the dawn bring you a bright new day, my love,” he said, tenderly kissing her hair. When he pulled back to see his wife’s face, her eyes were cast down.

“Faramir, I am ashamed. I…” she seemed to struggle for words and then say no more.

“Then we must share the shame,” Faramir said, taking her hands in his own. “Or choose to accept that we are but human, with passions born of both darkness and light.”

“But Faramir,” Éowyn said, gazing up at him in distress, “is not our love a thing of the light? To sully it with a lust for death as I did last night…”

“For death?” Faramir whispered passionately. “Last night you moved me with your lust for life, my love!”

“And dragged you down into my darkness!” Éowyn protested.

“Why not seek strength in the love of your husband when the darkness touches you? Why not draw from him draughts of the spirit of life to sustain you when you can no longer feel its force inside you? I gladly would give you all that was in me to see you through a hundred dark nights of the soul.” Faramir then embraced her again. “Be not ashamed. Be human. And be my wife, for the day will come when I will call on you to similarly see me through.”

Éowyn sighed and pulled away. She gazed at him solemnly, but her eyes were bright and keen. “I will not drain a hundred nights of light from you, my love. I will build my strength through work and, if it be willed, by bearing and raising children who will make Gondor proud. Faramir, I know my own worth, but I would have you know that I strive one day to equal your kindness and wisdom.”

Faramir ached with tenderness for his wife. When she spoke from her heart, she burned him like the summer sun, and yet like a plunge into cool water, always took his breath away with the strength of the will behind her words. “You are a balm to me and there is no one on this earth who could give me more honor with such words,” he said at last.

Éowyn raised her eyebrows. “Is there not one other?”

Faramir smiled and shook his head. “No, Éowyn, for me, your regard reigns over the love of all others.”

Éowyn’s nodded her approval and she began to smile. She kissed him softly. “I will see you tomorrow.” Then she tied back her hair, donned her cloak and went to the chamber door. “Give my regards to the King,” she said over her shoulder as she left the room, and winked at Faramir.

Faramir lay briefly back down on the bed and shook his head, smiling. What man could equal such a wife? he wondered. Well, certainly not one who let the day take him unawares, he thought, and rose to dress.

In a day, the court was to disperse for the season, so there was much business to be resolved. Faramir’s morning was filled with meetings to work out the new plan to reallocate men from military service to agricultural brigades. In the afternoon, he reported to the Council his plans for assigning the brigades along the eastern shores of the Anduin.

“But what of Anorien and Lebennin?” asked the Captain from Pelargir.

Prince Imrahil jumped in, “it is not customary for the Steward to order the business of the feifdoms.”

“But our losses in the near feifdoms are so great that we must make sure men are assigned where they are most needed,” said Forbald, the Lord of Lossarnach. “For now, I would prefer the Steward’s advice and oversight.”

Imrahil exchanged looks with Hirdon, the Lord of Pinnath Galen. “I would seek not to burden my nephew further. Though Dol Amroth repairs its fleet and directs the re-establishment of trade in Gondor’s main port cities, our energies are not so scattered that we cannot also oversee our own food supply.”

Lord Golasgil of Anfalas and Lord Dervorin of the Ringlo Vale nodded in assent.

Faramir gave a tight smile to his Uncle, knowing that his generosity was motivated mainly by concern over his own sovereignty under this new King. During the war, and for years before, Dol Amroth and the lands it oversaw had thrived while Minas Tirith and the people of its lands dwindled. The lords of the inner feifdoms had little to loose from placing themselves under his command and much to gain while they were still in such dire straits.

“I seek not to burden you further, Lord Steward,” said a Lord of Lebennin, with a sharp look to Imrahil, “but you have the knowledge to expand your plan for Ithilien to the rest of the near feifdoms, and you would have the full cooperation of my officers in implementing the plan.”

Faramir nodded his head thoughtfully, but his chest grew tight with worry.

Aragorn looked from Imrahil to Faramir. “From Minas Tirith we must maintain the defenses, work with the Dwarves in rebuilding the defenses of the cities and towns, establish our relations with the freed lands, and govern the kingdom. Still, someone from my staff could coordinate the brigades for Lossarnach, at least.”

Aragorn looked to Forbald, who looked to Faramir.

“My Lord,” Faramir said resignedly, “no one would suggest that the King should also resolve the problem of agriculture, but already my energies are torn between three poles: I am charged with assisting the Elves in restoring the greenspaces of Ithilien, reestablishing farms on the eastern shores, and cleansing the land of the lingering stench of Mordor. As much as I wish to think I could discharge all these duties to the fullest, I am forced to admit that one or more of these efforts will fail if it is on me to assure the bounty of the autumn harvest in the lands to the Anduin’s west and north, as well.”

Aragorn nodded and gave Faramir a sympathetic look. “You are right. This is too much for even a most capable leader to manage alone. But you have a helpmate in at least one these matters: what say you to the idea that the Lady of Ithilien should officially be charged with managing the restoration of gardens and forests? She has already devoted her energies to these efforts and is fully capable of taking on a role of greater responsibility than she has thus far been given. If you would grant it to her, I would happily approve her as the Warden of the Land in Ithilien.”

Faramir was stunned by the wisdom of the King’s proposal. His mind raced forward to how Éowyn would react – she would meet the challenge with the fervor of a warrior to battle!

Aragorn raised his eyebrows inquiringly. “Perhaps you think it too soon to take your new bride’s attentions from home and hearth?”

Faramir burst out laughing. “Nay, Lord! I live to see her smile and nothing would give her greater pleasure and satisfaction than what you propose. Once again your insight into the hearts of your subjects works to benefit the Kingdom. She will accept this duty with gratitude, I am certain.”

Aragorn smiled and his eyes shone with pleasure. “I am glad you approve. We must not overlook our women when we search for great talents – we need every keen mind and strong hand in the Kingdom to be hard at work,” he said, pointedly looking at certain members of the Council. To Faramir he said, “tomorrow I will ride with you to Emyn Arnen to make my request of Éowyn in person.”

Faramir showed his surprise, but concealed his pleasure that the King would accompany him home. And then, like the tumbler of a lock clicking into place, an idea opened to him and he began to conceive another way the King might help his wife escape the ghosts of her past. But first, he still needed to know…

“…issue of your duties stands yet unresolved, Prince Faramir,” the King was saying. Faramir quickly directed his attention back to Aragorn. “The agricultural issue is of utmost importance and it will yet take many years to restore light to the Morgul Vale.”

Faramir nodded. “My efforts there have met with limited success. Some lingering evil works its fell magic there still. Only those of my men who withstood the black breath of the Nazgûl have been able to go with me there. Even so, none of us can stay there long or we would be driven mad. We have been limited to scouting Minas Morgul. Though the city appears deserted, it should remain under watch.”

“Very well. I see no reason for you to pursue the problem of Morgul while other tasks are more pressing. Let us set up a permanent watch at the crossroads. Since you have turned over the command of the Rangers in the north to Mablung, you may now consider yourself relieved of the military duties I have charged you with.” The King flashed a smile at Faramir. “Will you agree to stay at Rín Tôr Nín for the time being, or will you miss ranging the hills, eating fresh killed game, sleeping under the stars, and risking your life for glory?”

“I will miss these things, but not overly much,” Faramir said, smiling.

“Good,” The King said loudly, then muttering under his breath, “I, for one, will be glad to have you closer to home.” The King then said to the others, “it is settled then. Prince Faramir will lead the efforts to restock our pantries and see us through another winter.”

In contrast to his grief of the night before, Faramir now felt filled with purpose and with overflowing love, not just for his King, but for his life and his land. With great enthusiasm, he recruited some of his old comrades-in-arms to survey the condition of farmlands West of the Anduin north to the vales of the White Mountains. He went to the archive and assigned two clerks the work of gathering the information on acrage estimates and troop sizes in the inner feifs. He wrote up instructions to Beregond regarding the more permanent establishment of his personal guard at Rín Tôr Nín, and talked with Mablung about how to arrange a permanent watchpost at the crossroads.

He then spread his good cheer at dinner, toasting the Lords and charming their Ladies. When he rose from the table, he stood behind the King’s chair and clasped a shoulder in each hand. “I know not for certain that it can be done, but I now think that it can,” he assured the King.

Aragorn smiled up at him warmly. “I delight in your mood, friend.”

Arwen placed a hand on top of Faramir’s. “There is even greater glory before you than behind you, I think,” she said in her ethereal voice, “and even greater joy, because the battles before you involve not weapons, but hard work and wise words.”

Faramir smiled and bowed his head. “Your words fortify my faith, my Lady.”

Aragorn reached up and laid a hand on top of Arwen’s. Faramir felt a tingling heat coming from Arwen’s palm into the back of his own hand and he was reminded again of Aragorn’s touch at the time of his healing.

“Shall I find you in your chamber later?” Aragorn asked, and when Faramir nodded, he said, “I will come when I am able.”

Chapter 11 – The Sons of Númenor

Faramir finished up some business elsewhere in the Citadel then returned to his room and busied himself packing his trunk for the return home the following day. He removed his courtly clothes to pack them and noticed a few unpleasant scratch marks on his chest from the night before. He applied some salve that would not sting his cuts and changed into the plain riding clothes he would wear the next day. Then he tended the fire, and pulled up two chairs, one of which he sat in, his feet warming on the hearth. This was how he wanted Aragorn to find him: relaxed and bathed in the light of the fire.

At last, the knock came. “Come in,” said Faramir. Aragorn slipped in quietly and joined him in front of the fireplace. He seemed suddenly shy and stared into the flames, smiling slightly. Faramir just watched him, happy to be free to gaze as long as he liked.

“My Lord,” Faramir said eventually, “thank you for what you are going to do for Éowyn. She has suffered in her idleness at court, and now she may make her contribution to the court as an active participant. It will ease her heart and mind greatly to take on this work.”

Aragorn smiled and nodded. “I had so hoped. When she did not attend dinner last night, I was concerned that all was not well, after all. Was she ill or was she upset?”

Faramir pursed his lips. “She was unwell. Her heart was greatly troubled, in part by her longing to be of use, and in part because she spent the day dwelling in the past.” Aragorn nodded again and Faramir decided the time was right to ask Éowyn’s question. “My Lord, I would know something of your heart on the matter of my wife.”

Aragorn looked at him in surprise. “Yes? What is it?”

“In light of what is between you and me, it seems cruel to her and, as I love her passionately and wonder that all do not feel the same, it is puzzling to me: why did you not return her love for you?”

Aragorn pulled out his pipe and lit it. “If I had returned her love as she was then, it could have been nothing other than a false promise. You are right – she is a woman a man cannot help but love, and I did long to comfort her. But I knew, had I shown her any sign of my feelings, she would have clung to a stillborn hope, for I would never have wed her.” He puffed for a while in silence. “My every breath was dedicated to keeping hope alive among her people and ours, and yet I could give no hope to her. It broke something in me that has yet to fully mend.”

This thought stabbed at Faramir’s heart, that perhaps he, Éowyn, and Aragorn all needed each other to feel themselves whole again. It was a tricky business and one that could go woefully wrong.

Aragorn drew another breath from the pipe. His face was troubled. “She believes I care for her not?”

Faramir sighed. “She finds you cold to her.”

“Such is the bitter part of being King that I am not able to show my friends my affection as I would wish. Injuries go long untended or unnoticed while my mind is occupied with affairs of state.”

Faramir nodded, knowing well the demands made on Gondor’s rulers.

“Power requires the sacrifice of freedom. Freedom to love,” Aragorn said, glancing meaningfully at Faramir. “Freedom to speak plainly.” He paused and looked into his pipe.

A sly smile played upon Faramir’s lips. Aragorn tapped his pipe on the side of the hearth and Faramir said, “Aragorn, I would speak plainly.”

Aragorn smiled slightly. “Please, do.”

“When you take your pipe, it makes me wonder how your breath must taste.”

Aragorn’s smile turned into a lazy grin and he held out his hand. Faramir took it and was drawn to his King, pressing his lips and tasting the sweet smokiness of his mouth.

Faramir straddled Aragorn’s lap and sat facing him, running his hands through his hair and kissing him deeply. Aragorn sat forward so that their chests came together and Faramir felt the King’s hands dive under his shirt and roam up his back.

After a long, slow kiss, Aragorn pulled back, his eyes a little wild and his breath short. “You have overcome your shyness!” He smiled and traced Faramir’s lips with his finger. “I have dreamed of these lips,” he murmured. “never believing I would be allowed…” and then he groaned with pleasure as Faramir took his finger into his mouth and stroked it with his tongue.

Aragorn removed his finger from Faramir’s mouth and Faramir gazed into Aragorn’s eyes, the fire building within him as he fought to prolong the moment before their next kiss. Both of them were labored in their breathing, though all else was still until Aragorn slid his pelvis slightly forward and drew Faramir toward him, grinding into him, and then Faramir broke ranks and seized the King’s mouth with his own. They both moaned and sighed freely as their kisses grew deeper and more intricate, their bodies pressed together below the waist.

Aragorn’s kisses were literary, leaving an intruiging tale lovingly inscribed upon Faramir’s lips. He felt overwhelmed again and moaned, breaking away from Aragorn. “Your kisses, they are…I must catch a breath.”

“Then I will kiss you elsewhere than your mouth,” Aragorn said silkily, and began to kiss Faramir’s throat.

Faramir felt himself fairly bursting from his trousers; the kisses to his neck prickled like nettles though Aragorn’s lips were soft and gentle. Aragorn lifted the shirt off Faramir’s body and kissed his way from neck to collarbone. Then he pulled his head back to better examine Faramir’s skin.

“Faramir?” the King asked, gently tracing around the scratches with his finger.

Faramir considered how to speak of Éowyn’s mood the night before. The King surveyed Faramir’s torso, finding other marks of the lovemaking. He looked up at Faramir in concern.

Faramir gazed off towards the bed where he and Éowyn had struggled with the dark side of their love the night before. “With the madness of spring, we made love as if to wrest the essence life from our very flesh and blood,” he said softly. “But instead of life, we found an emptiness, an ache…” The King caressed his face and Faramir looked again into his eyes. “Aragorn,” he said sadly, “she is not yet healed.”

“What is left undone?” asked Aragorn. “She has found hope in your love and strength in her new life, has she not?”

Faramir sensed that Aragorn was going to avoid the truth that he felt in his bones. “Aragorn,” he said, a little too firmly, so he softened his words by placing a hand gently alongside Aragorn’s face, “Aragorn, she called out your name.”

The King cast his eyes down toward the fading light of the fire and frowned.

Faramir kissed the hair on Aragorn’s head. Hoping the King would see the wisdom in his plan, he said, “will you try to finish your healing? Tomorrow, when you come to ask for her help, will you not also show her your love?”

Aragorn twisted under Faramir’s weight. “Please, Faramir, I would stand now.” Faramir stood up and let the King pace the room.

“If you are asking me to make love to her, I doubt that is the correct course for healing! Will she not find comfort in my respect for her talents and my faith in her abilities?”

“If you had seen her last night, you would know she does not dwell in her mind but in her body. Through her body, you could reach her in a way that your words never could.”

Aragorn rubbed his forehead and his face twisted with pain. “I turned my back on her when she begged not to be parted from me. Though it tore out a piece of my soul, I left that proud maiden on her knees in the dust! She should never forgive me,” he said bitterly. “Time and again, I thwarted her heart’s desire: for glory, for death, and for my love. What makes you think she would welcome me now?”

Faramir smiled, thinking of Éowyn’s eagerness to hear of his lovemaking with the King two nights before when he returned to her bed. “My Lord, to protect her feelings, you have shut yourself off from her and do not know her well. She is no shy maiden nor made of glass or polished stone. Her hurt does not make her fragile; it makes her fierce, as you can see by looking at the marks on my flesh. I know not that she would welcome your embrace, but I feel in my heart that your offering it would do her good.”

“Faramir,” the King said, looking doubtful, “are you not concerned that this would unleash something you would rather not set free?”

Faramir smiled resignedly. “I have my doubts about what I propose, and I share your concern that it would be something we might all come to regret. Yet I can see it so clearly in my mind as bringing her wholeness again that I felt I had to say something.” Faramir drew near to the King and clasped his shoulder. “Do not make a decision now. I will chart a course tomorrow, but you may decide for yourself whether the winds are favorable.”

Aragorn looked at him for quite a while with questioning eyes. “Indeed, I fear we will sail into even rougher waters,” the King sighed, “but I feel in my heart much of what you have said about Éowyn is right.” Aragorn drew Faramir to him again, embracing him and kissing a bruise on his shoulder. “Neither she nor I will be complete in our strength until we have done away with the distance between us. But I know not if this is the way to build a bridge.”

Slowly, Faramir undid the laces of Aragorn’s clothes and soon they both stood naked in front of the burning embers of the fire. Softly they kissed, caressing each other wherever they could reach. Faramir grasped Aragorn in his hand and slowly stroked him, as Aragorn softly moaned into his ear. “My sweet Faramir,” he breathed, “oh, how you move me. I do not think you yet comprehend what you mean to me.”

Aragorn kissed Faramir passionately then, gripping his hair in one hand and his backside in the other. Faramir melted into this possessive embrace and thrust up against Aragorn’s hip. “Aragorn, I want you to make love to me,” he whispered into his master’s ear, his heart pounding with fear and desire. “I want to feel you inside me,” he panted.

Aragorn’s flesh jumped against Faramir’s belly. They moved slightly apart and Aragorn looked deep into Faramir’s eyes. “But you are afraid,” Aragorn said, concerned.

“Of course I am afraid,” Faramir nodded. “but it is what I want, if it be your will.”

Aragorn slowly closed his eyes and opened them again. “Do not be afraid. I long to feel you as close to me as I possibly can, but it is no good without something to ease the passage. Have you anything…”

Faramir gestured to the salve he had earlier applied to his wounds. Aragorn smiled and led Faramir to the bed. Gently he guided Faramir to lie on his stomach, and he let himself down upon Faramir’s back, lips on neck, hands on arms, belly on back, pelvis to buttocks, and legs twined with legs. Faramir felt deliciously smothered and remembered how he had been in Aragorn’s position with Éowyn the night before. He felt a keen connection to her and the pleasure she had felt when he had thrust into her from this angle. He moaned out loud at the thought of Aragorn doing the same to him. He had never felt this longing to be entered before, but it was taking hold of him now with great urgency. “Oh, Aragorn,” he mumbled to the man who was kissing his way down his spine, “I want you so much.” And then he felt it again arising within him, this sensation of power that was not desire but accompanied desire, this force that drove him to Aragorn, not just for pleasure but for some other purpose. He let it flow within him now, not struggling against it as he had done before, hoping to see how it moved in him, and to what end.

Aragorn reached for the salve and rubbed some between his hands. With one hand he reached around to Faramir’s front, and Faramir bucked his hips up slightly to accommodate his caresses. With his other hand, Aragorn began to stroke the crease of Faramir’s backside and to tease his hole with his finger tips. Again, Faramir moaned, delighting in the forbidden sensation. Then he tensed up as a finger tried to enter him.

“Try to relax,” Aragorn encouraged him, “and breathe.”

Faramir relaxed and he felt a delicious burning sensation inside as a finger entered him. In front, Aragorn tickled and teased him. He took deep breaths and the finger went deeper, touching him in a place that sent a bolt of pleasure through him. “Oh!” he gasped as Aragorn continued to play him with both hands. When the finger withdrew, he felt a wave of warmth pass over him, and then another finger begged entrance. After a few minutes of these attentions, Faramir was clutching the bedsheets and begging incoherently, “please, Aragorn, I want…oh, please, you…”

Then Aragorn moved behind him and pulled up on his hips so that Faramir was crouched in front of the other man, his arms stretched out in front, his forehead resting on a pillow. He felt something hard press up against him and he heard Aragorn’s voice saying, as if from far away, “breathe. Relax.” And then the pressing again, and the burning, but he breathed and relaxed, and then Aragorn was inside him. Faramir let out a long, audible sigh. Aragorn stopped and Faramir relaxed and Aragorn pushed in a little more. The burning had turned pleasant to Faramir, and the rhythm of his breathing and of Aragorn’s slow, shallow thrusts was putting him in a meditative state. Then, on a deeper thrust, he felt that bolt of pleasure again, and Faramir cried out in a long moan.

The movement stopped. Aragorn’s voice again, concerned: “was that a moan of pleasure?” and Faramir nodded, but realized that Aragorn could not see that he was nodding, so he had to say weakly, “Yes. More…please…” and he felt a longing to pull Aragorn deeper and deeper inside of him. The feeling was as powerful as a force of nature, like the sound of a great tree falling to the earth or the pull of rapid water on a boat. And he heard his own voice crying out with each thrust, a beautiful whimpering sound that seemed like it was coming from someone else. But this was him, with his beloved Aragorn now deep inside him, filling him with warm pressure, kissing his back, and reaching around…

“Aah!” The sensation of Aragorn’s hand on him seemed to slam him back into his body and he felt the cries coming from his own throat again. His climax was almost a distraction, but a necessary one, as he released onto the bedclothes. Faramir felt grateful that Aragorn was able to control himself, and after slowing a bit, soon he was driving into Faramir all the way, bringing them together, flesh to flesh. Aragorn kept up his pace for a long while, leaving Faramir feeling thoroughly consumed and powerfully loved. Then, after muttering words Faramir could not discern, Aragorn, too, cried out and the beautiful sensation died down. Faramir felt Aragorn’s sweat-soaked skin pressed against his back. The warmth was delightful. “Oh, my love,” he heard Aragorn say in a shuddering breath. Faramir found he could not yet speak so he just gave a contented sigh.

Aragorn reached under Faramir’s shoulders and rose to pull them both into a sitting position, Faramir straddling his thighs. Aragorn tilted his chin up to rest on Faramir’s shoulder. His hands stroked slowly all over the front of Faramir’s body, both searching and soothing. Faramir shut his eyes and relaxed back into the embrace. “I have never felt anything like that, Aragorn,” he said. “Tonight I am yours completely, and it is most wonderful.”

“Oh, Faramir, how I have longed to feel you in my arms! You cannot know what this means to me.” Aragorn pressed his face into Faramir’s back.

Faramir felt deeply touched by these words, and felt the strange force within him take hold more firmly than ever, uncoiling from the center of his chest and twining into every fiber of his body.

“Something in this was meant to be, Aragorn. I have felt your presence within me ever since you entered my mind in the Houses of Healing.” Faramir reached up and behind him to caress Aragorn’s hair. “From that day hence, the gift of hope you gave me has coursed through my veins and bound me to you. It is, I think, the cause of this unknown force within me which at first I feared, but now which brings me a strength of spirit I have never known.”

Aragorn’s hands on his chest stilled. “Faramir,” Aragorn said thoughtfully. “I think that the source of this power was not a gift from me, but was in you all along.” He paused again and when he spoke, his voice trembled. “I was able to bring it out in you because it runs strong in me.”

Faramir puzzled over what could provoke such emotion in Aragorn. “What, then, do you think it is?”

Aragorn whispered, “know you not? Do you not also feel it coursing through your veins?” Aragorn pulled Faramir into an even tighter embrace. “My beloved brother!” he said passionately, kissing the back of his neck, “it is the blood of Númenor, calling its sons into the West.”

Faramir felt stunned, and suddenly chilled, by this truth. His mind instantly seized on the words that must also be recalling themselves to Aragorn, and he heard himself utter in the high Elvish tongue,

In the West, two stars blaze brightly
When love makes them mighty.
No doors shall be closed to the sons of Númenor’s twilight;
Earth and stone bend to their will, and all men share in their delight.

Faramir felt Aragorn’s hands loosen their grasp and his breath grow rapid and shallow. Faramir moved forward and Aragorn pulled away. They lay on their sides, forehead to forehead. Aragorn’s hand moved to Faramir’s and their fingers intertwined. After a long while, Faramir began to smile and looked into Aragorn’s eyes. “No doors shall be closed to us. It is what I already felt after the council meeting today. We will remake our world.”

Aragorn smiled softly. “And the people will share in our joy. You have found the valor in our love, Faramir. Songs will be sung of the Steward and the King.”

Chapter 12 – Answering the Call

Faramir dreamed again: the evening star grew ever brighter on the Western horizon, brighter even than the sun, and on the shores of the Anduin, orchards and fields spread all the way to the sea. The star began to set and it became two stars, then four, then sixteen, then hundreds, and when darkness fell, great cities grew up in the light of the full moon.

Faramir awoke entangled in Aragorn’s limbs. He smiled and embraced the warm body beside him. I do not recall falling asleep, he thought, and then the shock hit him again, as he recalled the words they had exchanged and the vision from his dream. Though this second dream was clearer and more powerful than the last, Faramir could not help feeling profoundly foolish for quoting ancient prophecy to Aragorn earlier that night. The King was used to understanding his fate in such lofty terms, but Faramir, second son to the Steward of Gondor, was not. He dreamed of others’ fates, not of his own.

Éowyn was right: he had gotten a taste of glory and renown, and he was now trying to turn his weakness of the flesh into magic and destiny. He felt wretched and pulled away from Aragorn, wishing he could leave, but since they were in his bedchamber and it was the middle of the night, all he could do for now was to dress and go stand on the balcony.

The air was cool but not cold and smelled fresh and green, promising a fine spring day. At first, the thought of the ride back home cheered him. But then he thought to himself, ah, but Aragorn is coming with you, and if my memory by unbridled lust has not been dulled, the subsequent event to that ride, by my own design, may involve a liaison between my King and my beloved wife. Faramir rubbed his temples with his fingers and wondered, have I lost my senses and fallen into depravity? My mind is as impenetrable as the night, even to myself.

Then strong arms embraced him and the King gazed with him into the garden. “What draws you to the garden, my love? Has the morning bird’s song called you hence?” Aragorn asked.

Faramir knew not what to say and held his tongue until the impropriety of their state aroused his worry. “My Lord, someone might see you here,” he finally managed.

“So return with me to the bed.” Aragorn pulled him back into the chamber, a seductive smile on his face.

Faramir was too embarrassed to be seduced and he sat on the edge of the bed and bowed his head in his hands. “I feel quite the fool.”

“Why? What troubles you?” Aragorn asked with concern, and knelt on the floor beside Faramir.

A moment passed before Faramir thought to protest, pulling on Aragorn’s arms, “please, my Lord, get up!”

“It is still night and we are still alone; am I to be your King again so soon?” Aragorn asked, hurt. “Please, tell me what distresses you.”

Suddenly Aragorn lay his head in Faramir’s lap and encircled his waist with his arms. “Nay, tell me not,” he said, his voice breaking. “I fear to look in your eyes lest I see regret over the love we made tonight.” He was quiet for a moment and then said softly, “no, I will know it. Speak truthfully: you wish to take back what has passed between us.”

Aragorn’s distress caused Faramir’s irritation with himself to increase tenfold and he was agitated by the fear betrayed in Aragorn’s voice. “No, Aragorn,” he said soothingly, smoothing the King’s hair, “my distress is caused by the unguarded words I spoke before. Weakened by the strength of my passion for you, vanity got the better of me and played me for the fool. Please forget what I said. Were that I could also forget.”

Aragorn moved to the bed, sat beside Faramir, rubbed his eyes, and ran a hand through his hair. He took a deep breath and seemed to steady himself, but he would not look at Faramir. He took Faramir’s hand in his and pressed it to his lips, where he held it for a long while ere he spoke. “So you do not believe to be true what I said about the blood of Númenor?”

“Vanity utters praise no fool would repeat,” Faramir muttered, but his dream made him wonder if he was not being falsely modest.

Aragorn released his hand and now looked Faramir in the eye. “Then doubt you your own senses? Something is in you, or so you perceive, every time we embrace. If it is not some force of great power, what, then, would you call it?”

Faramir looked at him and considered what he should say. The kindness in Aragorn’s eyes began to twist into something else, and the longer the two men looked at each other, the more Faramir felt he was crushing Aragorn with his silence and wounding him with his doubt. What could he say?

Aragorn stood up and began to dress hastily, almost throwing his clothing onto himself.

“Aragorn, wait,” Faramir said pleadingly.

Aragorn held up a finger as if about to make a point, and his eyes flashed with anger, but he forbore from speaking. He lowered his finger and strode up to Faramir. “You think that what you felt was simple animal lust,” he said bitterly. Faramir could not reply, and he saw that Aragorn took that to be confirmation of his accusation. Aragorn allowed his pain to show for a moment, then turned away.

“How well you repay others’ faith in you! I did not feel foolish about what you said earlier tonight, but now I know not what to think.” He made for the door, but turned around again. “Would it be so troubling to know your future would be blessed? That all you sought to achieve in this life would be done? That…” and here he became choked up again, “that you would have love in abundance for the rest of your days? Do you not know yourself worthy of these things?” he asked, his voice agonized.

Faramir was struck dumb at the intensity of Aragorn’s emotions.

For a moment, Aragorn seemed to be struggling to control his feelings, but then they burst forth again, propelling him back across the room to Faramir where he said in a stern voice, “will you not learn to bear the indignities of fame like the man you are? The time is no more when you may hide in the shadow of your father or your brother, or of any man! Answer the call of your destiny, Faramir, Steward of Gondor! Your hour draws near, but you know it not.”

As Aragorn spoke these heated words, Faramir at first experienced alarm, then anger rose in him, but now he suddenly comprehended, and he rose to his feet and surprised Aragorn by grabbing his head and bringing his lips to Aragorn’s mouth for a tender kiss. “Oh, Aragorn,” he whispered. “I see you! I see how the burden of your blood taxes you yet, but I will do everything in my power to make it easier for you to answer the call.”

Then Aragorn embraced him so tightly it cut off his breath and whispered, “it is yourself you do not see, my brother.” Then he relaxed his hold a little and said, “I believe what you said tonight, Faramir. You must also answer the call. I believe that every hour we have spent together is fraught with meaning beyond the understanding of our minds. I know this call, and we are to answer it together.”

More than anything, Faramir wanted to soothe Aragorn, to agree to his lofty words and, for the sake of the King, accept the mantle of the heroes of old, but such thoughts just would not sit comfortably with a man such as he. He nestled into the warmth of Aragorn’s arms. “I even dreamed of it. Tonight was the second time,” he confessed. “I wish the meaning of this was sure in me as it seems to be in you, but it is not.”

Aragorn released him from his embrace and said with a small smile, “let us go, then.”

“Where are we going?”

“To seek Arwen’s counsel.”

After a quick and furtive walk through the darkened hallways to the Queen’s bedchamber, Faramir found himself recounting his dream and quoting an ancient prophecy before a child of the ancients.

“Your Quenya is beautiful,” she said.

“Thank you. Mithrandir taught me,” Faramir replied, unable to hold her gaze.

“It is clear that the sun is setting on our age. So what is the question at hand?” Arwen asked, looking from her husband to the Steward. “The sons of Númenor’s twilight stand before me and ask me what they are made of: earth, or starlight? That is the question.”

Aragorn nodded.

“Lord Faramir,” the Queen said, “what difference would it make if you believed that you were to be one of the stars in the prophecy? Would you live your life any differently knowing that your life was to be the last blaze of Númenor’s glory?”

Faramir sat down on a chair and thought for a while. What difference, indeed, would it make to him to believe that his life was graced and his actions were destined to benefit his people? Would he not make all the same decisions? Or might he become careless in his confidence?

“My Lady,” he began, “the King chided me earlier, and rightly so, for wishing away the burden of greatness. But he has learned to shoulder his responsibilities with humility and grace, and his example could guide me to do likewise. The real source of my fear and doubt lies in my belief in the fallibility of men. If one is confident that one can do no wrong, then there is no incentive to guard against weakness, prejudice, or poor judgment. Impulse takes the place of reason and ends are made to justify means.”

Arwen nodded and graced him with a rare smile. “There is much wisdom in what you say, but look behind the words of the prophecy. ’No doors shall be closed,’ but how easily will they open? ‘Stone and earth will bend to their will,’ but will must be exercised, perhaps at great cost.” She now regarded both men gravely.

Faramir’s breath was tight in his chest as he waited for her to speak again.

“If it is true,” she said at last, and Faramir let out a long sigh of relief at the sound of the word “if,” “then this force inside you will grow along with the strength of your bond to my husband. That is how you will know your role in this. Your own feelings will speak the truth to you.”

A chill passed down Faramir’s spine. To hear the Queen speak this way of his bond with the King made it suddenly seem much more real to him and he realized that until then, he had been half expecting this attachment to end at any moment. Now it began to sink in that there was much more at stake than his vanity.

Arwen turned to the King. “You, too, must look beyond your assumptions, Estel. ’Love makes them mighty,’ it is said. But there is a gap in the circle of love that would sustain you.”

Aragorn shifted uncomfortably in his chair and glanced at Faramir.

Faramir looked at Arwen with sudden comprehension, then said with a small smile,

Four less one is less than three
And four less two is naught to me
Two plus two is four reborn
But what holds up our Aragorn?

Arwen laughed with pleasure. “It is not just the blood of Númenor that shows itself in you tonight, my friend. I also claim you as one of my kin!”

Then Arwen grew serious and said, “I thought that once Éowyn returned to Gondor, Estel would be able to traverse the distance between them, but he was not able to find the right path. Instead, he moved yet farther away from her, fearing to interfere with your happiness. And now that you have given him joy beyond what your humility will allow you to know, he is also held back from action by his fear of losing you.”

“Arwen,” Aragorn moaned, “you say too much.”

“And you conceal too much that would be to your benefit to share. All four of us must understand our part in this if we are to act rightly.”

Faramir looked to Aragorn, who was now leaning forward, elbows on knees and his head in his hands. Many mysterious things now made sense, including Aragorn’s strangely antagonizing behavior toward Éowyn. Aragorn’s turbulent emotions of that evening were also now clear to Faramir and he felt profoundly humbled at the depth of feeling he now understood Aragorn bore for him. Aragorn yet doubts my devotion, he thought, because he misconstrues my doubt of myself.

Though he felt shy in front of Arwen, Faramir could no longer bear to see Aragorn suffer without attempting to comfort him. He went to Aragorn and sat on the arm of his chair, caressing his back.

“If this is prophecy, it cannot yet be fulfilled,” Arwen said. “A dissonant note will spoil the harmony, so you must take care, Estel. Your fear of Éowyn’s love has drawn your attention away from a development that is much more damaging.”

Faramir was amazed to hear Arwen’s variation on his earlier words to the King.

“She simply no longer cares for you,” Arwen said to her husband, “and that indifference is a problem that only you can solve.”

Chapter 13 – Closing the Circle

They rode, the sun-warmed soil soft beneath the hooves of their horses. They rode, two alone, though the captain of the tower guard had insisted that he send a rider to later on to accompany the King back home. Faramir had noted the grim resignation in Aragorn’s face when he agreed to be met at the foot of the road leading in to the Emyn Arnen four hours hence.

They rode, quickly bringing their horses to a gallop and swiftly covering the short distance across the Pelennor to the Harlond. The cool spring wind whipped through their hair and the smell of freshly turned earth greeted them as they sped past the fields and half-rebuilt settlements.

They rode more slowly as they approached the wall, briefly surveying its condition before leaving their horses in care of the men at the ferry crossing. A small boat took them across to the Ithilien side and they walked the three miles up the hillside. When the road went through a small forest, the path was thick with rotten leaves and pine needles. The smell was heady and lush, and Aragorn paused to take a deep draught of the forest air.

“It is marvelous here,” he sighed.

Faramir smiled and held his breath. If the King did not turn from him and proceed up the path, he feared that nothing would restrain him from throwing him down under the trees and kissing him passionately.

Aragorn put a hand on his shoulder and started to laugh. “No,” he shook his head. “No! Stop! Your thoughts are transparent as the air!”

Faramir laughed and roughly plunged toward Aragorn, who slipped out of his grasp. “My Lord Steward,” Aragorn laughed, running up the hill, “you forget yourself!”

Faramir was suddenly overcome by a childhood memory of roughhousing with his brother on a fine spring day, and his joy at his freedom with Aragorn mixed with the emptiness of Boromir’s absence. And so he walked, a bittersweet smile on his face and tears brimming in his eyes.

On the approach to the estate, they were greeted by Luthir, who told them that all was well in the house of the Prince. The guard let them in the front gate and told them that lunch would soon be ready.

“Are you hungry?” When Aragorn shook his head, Faramir said, “good, neither am I and I want to tell Éowyn the good news right away.”

They walked up the stone steps to the large wooden house and entered the handsomely inlaid Elvish door. “Éowyn?” Faramir called.

“Welcome back, my Lord. She is upstairs,” a voice called from the next room. Maida emerged into the entryway. “Oh!” she exclaimed when she saw Aragorn and bowed deeply. “Welcome, King Elessar!”

The King nodded to her. “Thank you, Maida, is it? It is nice to see you again.”

The young woman blushed and took their cloaks.

“Maida, please go tell cook that the King will be joining us for lunch and then please set a place for him,” Faramir said, patting her on the shoulder.

“Yes, Lord Faramir,” the girl curtsied and scurried across the yard to the building that housed the estate’s kitchen and the dining hall for informal meals.

“Wait here a moment, my Lord,” Faramir said. “I will tell her you are here.”

Faramir darted up the steps two at a time and found Éowyn in the sunny workroom located off their bedchamber.

“You are home so early!” she exclaimed, rising to embrace him.

Faramir kissed her and held her close. “I brought the King.”

Éowyn looked up at him with a mixture of emotions on her face.

“He has good news for you,” Faramir reassured her.

“Shall we go down to him?” Éowyn asked.

Faramir suppressed a smile. “Better I bring him up here.”

Faramir watched Éowyn’s face turn from bemusement to delight as the King explained the decision of the council that she should take charge of working with the Elves in Ithilien.

“My Lord,” Éowyn said, “I know not what to say. This honor fills me with gratitude and joy to my very depths. When shall I begin?”

“I fear you must put away these embroidery frames to make room for a work table where you can organize your reports,” Aragorn teased. Gesturing around the room, he said “those seedlings will have to be moved to the greenhouse because you will need another large table by that window for the drafting plans. And I noticed that the entry hall is rather bare; you will require more chairs for your superintendents while they await your orders.”

Éowyn laughed with pleasure. “And I will need a secretary to accompany me on land surveys, and I will have to seek out the elders in the towns to gain knowledge about the care and use of local plants, and…will I be required to report to the Council?” she asked hopefully.

Aragorn smiled. “Thrice yearly.”

Éowyn looked from Faramir to Aragorn and back again to Faramir. “This is good news, indeed.”

Faramir took her hand, and in his other hand he took the King’s. Slowly he drew their hands close and clasped them together with his own. Éowyn gave him a suspicious look, but he directed her eyes to the King’s face with his own gaze.

Aragorn’s eyes showed his worry, but he smiled at Éowyn. “My Lady, as my advisor, as the wife of Faramir, and also, I hope, as my friend, I would have you understand something of my attitude toward you in the past.”

Faramir looked back to Éowyn’s face, anxiously trying to read her reactions. She frowned a little, but returned the King’s smile. “What is it, Lord Aragorn?”

“To resolve a puzzle that troubled you, Faramir asked me a question about my feelings for you. Why I never returned the love we both knew you felt.”

Faramir removed his hands from theirs and Éowyn made to take a step backward, but the King grasped her by both hands now. “Truly, it troubles me no longer, my Lord,” she said a little breathlessly. “You need not speak of it.”

“I appreciate your efforts to spare me this difficult conversation, but your words do not come from your heart,” Aragorn said, some anguish in his voice. “Rightly does it seem strange to you that I freely disclose my feelings to your husband, yet I hide my feelings from you.”

“Lord Aragorn, let the past be what it was. Do not bring me back to such unhappy times,” Éowyn pled, still trying to release her hands from the King’s grasp.

“Then let us speak only of the present. Discretion prohibited me from saying it then, but as wrong as the time was then, so now is the time right.” Slowly Aragorn drew her closer to him. “You think I never cared for you, but what man would not love you, so strong, so lovely?” he said with feeling.

Faramir saw Éowyn grow pale and her lip tremble. Aragorn continued, “I tell you this with no burden upon you to act or to speak in response but I would have you know that I have loved you ever since I saw you at Edoras. But always there was good reason for me to convince you otherwise, until you were so distant to me I could no longer reach you. But now I have come, and I hope it is not too late to rekindle in your heart at least the warmth of friendship towards me.”

Faramir watched Éowyn closely. She looked to him, and her eyes shone with tears and something fearful. Faramir leaned in to her, kissed her on the lips, and smiled. Slowly the color came back to her cheek and she looked up at Aragorn, a crease on her brow as she contemplated him.

“Lord Aragorn,” she said slowly, “if these words come from your heart, I think I begin to understand why I saw coldness in your eyes when in the past I sought the reflection of my love. But long has my own heart been cooled by the veiled look of your eye. Now you wish to rekindle its warmth.” She took a deep breath that exited as a shuddering sigh. “But what if this fire spreads?”

She looked to Faramir and her eyes challenged him to stop her. He held her gaze and gave a small nod, his heart pounding and his palms growing damp. Éowyn’s voice grew stronger now as she said “you require no action or response, yet I would act. I will respond. A man cannot take a woman into his arms and tell her he loves her, then hasten her back to her daily cares, even if that man is the King. So tell me, Aragorn, what else would you rekindle in me?”

Faramir saw that Aragorn was struggling with his answer to this question, so he moved his body behind Éowyn’s and gently pressed her towards the King.

Éowyn reached up with one hand, pulled Aragorn’s face to her, and kissed him hard. She then looked at him fiercely. “I do not believe you,” she said finally. “Your kiss is temperate, and so is your love, at least towards me.” Faramir squeezed her shoulder. “I will give you my friendship, but I will not trust your words.”

For one more moment, Aragorn held back, giving Faramir a searching look and Faramir gave him a nod of assent. Then Aragorn’s expression changed utterly, his gentle and troubled look dissolving into wild desire. He grabbed Éowyn’s face in his hands and kissed her passionately. She threw her arms around his neck as Faramir pressed into them both, Aragorn’s hands moved down over Éowyn’s and Faramir’s shoulders to rest on Faramir’s waist. Éowyn threw her head back against Faramir as Aragorn kissed her neck, and Faramir slipped his hands between them to caress her breasts.

“Éowyn,” Aragorn moaned, kissing her face, “doubt me not. I long for you,” and again he kissed her deeply and pressed hard into her. Faramir smiled and nuzzled the side of Éowyn’s bare neck. He then withdrew from them to open the door to the bedchamber.

As Aragorn and Éowyn kissed and caressed each other in the middle of the workroom, Faramir barred the main door to the bedroom, shut the window and drew the curtain. He was fairly certain they were alone in the house, but the kitchen was just across the yard. He went back to the other room and led the other two by the hand into the bedroom, where he and the King undressed Éowyn. Faramir watched the King’s face glow as he caressed the smooth skin of Éowyn’s shoulders, and his fingers traced the outlines of her small, firm breasts. He watched Éowyn’s face, hot with desire, as the King bent down to take a nipple in his mouth, and Éowyn drew Faramir to her to lean on as she gasped with pleasure when the King’s fingers dove into her.

When Aragorn stood up straight again, she pulled away from both of them and said to Faramir, “I want to see you kiss him.”

Faramir’s hardness leapt at her words and he took Aragorn in his arms, kissing him tenderly. Éowyn slid her hand down Faramir’s backside, then between his legs, and teased him with her fingers. He turned to her and their mouths danced as Aragorn undid Faramir’s clothes. Then he removed Aragorn’s clothes while Éowyn watched, her eyes sparkling as Faramir’s caresses made Aragorn moan. Then they moved to enclose Aragorn within their embrace, Éowyn in front and Faramir behind.

As Faramir bit down softly on the back of Aragorn’s neck, he heard him say, “Éowyn, do you know what time in your cycle…?”

Faramir’s eyes flew open and he took a step back. It had not even occurred to him to worry about that none too small question, though Aragorn had made it clear he was quite cautious in such matters. It occurred to him that mending the rift with Éowyn must be very important to Aragorn, and to Arwen, for them to take such a risk.

Éowyn thought for a moment and then nodded. “There is no danger.”

“Be utterly sure,” Aragorn cautioned.

Éowyn looked up at Aragorn questioningly. “I am due on the morrow. But if you would rather not…” she could not finish her sentence because Aragorn had stopped her mouth with his kiss and her words turned into a moan.

Aragorn pushed her back on the bed and knelt between her knees, hungrily devouring her with his mouth. Faramir joined Éowyn on the bed and kissed her deeply as she reached down to stroke him. Aragorn’s muffled groans of delight nearly sent him over the edge, so Faramir concentrated on kissing his wife until her cries of passion drove him back to watch as her climax played out across her face.

Éowyn sat up and Faramir moved so that his back was to the wall to make room for Aragorn on the bed. Éowyn slid backwards between his legs, pulling Aragorn on top of her, so that Faramir cradled both of them in his lap, Éowyn’s head resting on one of his splayed thighs. Aragorn kissed Éowyn and then found Faramir’s hardness with his mouth. Éowyn was pinned between them and watched with delight as the King pleasured her husband. Then she turned her head a little more, and her tongue was darting along the parts of him that Aragorn could not reach.

Given such attentions, Faramir’s release was quick and the moment the King was done with him, Aragorn said to Éowyn, “lean a little more against your husband,” and rose slightly to let Faramir taste his mouth. Faramir helped position Éowyn under Aragorn so that the back of her head rested against Faramir’s chest.

The view this gave Faramir of Éowyn’s body was arousing him again and he watched with delighted fascination as the King gently entered her with a low moan, and his face softened, as if a burden had been lifted. For a moment, Faramir’s eyes locked with Aragorn’s and he could see the hunger building and within his own body, he felt something else growing, a feeling that was now becoming familiar and much less frightening. Aragorn’s second thrust was deeper, and by the third, Éowyn’s body went rigid and such a loud cry escaped her that Faramir briefly wondered that the servants did not come running from the kitchen. He gently covered Éowyn’s mouth with one hand and used the other to caress her breast as Aragorn thrust into her, occasionally looking into Faramir’s eyes with naked desire, his face contorted with pleasure. Éowyn thrashed wildly, the nails of one hand digging in to Faramir’s shoulder and the other hand buried in Aragorn’s hair.

Faramir wished he could get his hand between his wife’s legs to add to her pleasure, but he had not the reach without disturbing her position, so he had to content himself with caressing her upper half while Aragorn played an intricate rhythm below. At first Aragorn had been crouched above Éowyn, taking her hard and fast, and she had continued to cry out so uninhibitedly that Faramir’s hand still covered her mouth. Then the King had slid her body down a little so he could lay down on top of her. Now his thrusts were deeper but less forceful. All this Faramir could feel through his wife’s body, and he vividly recalled how it felt to be receiving such thrusts, and wondered if it felt at all the same for men and women.

The King was muttering in her ear, but Faramir could only catch snatches: “…so much…tell you…wanted to be with you…so long…to taste you and feel…dream made real.” Faramir caressed the back of Aragorn’s head. Éowyn’s face grew tender as she looked at Aragorn, and a tear fell from her eye.

Éowyn wrapped her arms and legs tightly around Aragorn’s body and her sighs of pleasure were like sobs, but her mouth wore a peaceful smile. Her eyes then closed and her open mouth began to pant out the words, “at last, at last.” And Faramir felt every fiber of his being come alive with the blood of Númenor and he knew with certainty that this force within him was born not of animal passion, but of the most worthy part of the makeup of men.

Aragorn raised himself up a little and grasped Faramir’s thigh and stayed still in Éowyn to gaze into Faramir’s eyes. Éowyn, too, turned her head to see him, and Faramir smiled and said with great emotion, “I love you both.” Aragorn held his gaze for a moment more, then looking again into Éowyn’s eyes, passion tore him away as he cried, “oh, Éowyn!” and finished inside her with a frantic flurry of thrusts that left Éowyn gasping for breath.

For a moment they stayed in place and Faramir felt the sweat of the others trickling down his body. Then Aragorn rolled off to one side and Éowyn to the other. Aragorn pulled Faramir’s arm so that he was lying down between them, each one curling around him and kissing his shoulder, his neck, his face. Faramir felt tears of happiness welling in his eyes. He looked to Éowyn, trying to read her face. Was she content?

Éowyn looked at him through half-closed lids, her face flushed and feminine. She graced him with a devilish smile that turned into a peal of laughter. “Oh my husband!” she laughed. “In all the legends of both our lands, never has there been a husband who loved his wife as you do – with the help of another man!”

All three of them shook with laughter.

Faramir turned his body to Éowyn’s and smiled shyly. “Perhaps the legend has yet to be told of the woman worthy of being loved by both the Steward and the King.”

Aragorn lay his head on Faramir’s shoulder and reached across his body to caress Éowyn’s face. “Then let us now, very quietly, sing the song of the Lady, her husband, and the man who loved them both.”

Epilogue

Arwen and Éowyn were practicing archery with the 11-year-olds, Elboron and Eldarion, on the back lawn. Little Theodwyn was on the veranda playing solicitously with her baby sister and a quite new member of the House of Telcontar. Maida, now a full grown woman about to wed an Ithilien boy, hovered in the background, ready to step in if the babies fussed. Faramir sat on the side of the veranda, a book lying open in his lap, unread for some while as he had watched his family enjoy the fine fall day.

He felt a hand on his and Aragorn said, “come walk with me in the orchard.”

With a nod and a wave from Maida, Faramir followed Aragorn down the steps and across the lawn to the orchard path. They walked in silence, a warm breeze ruffling their hair. A short way into the orchard, Aragorn plucked an apple, dusted it off on his shirt, took a bite, and handed it to Faramir, who also took a bite. When Faramir handed the apple back to Aragorn, he saw the light of joy dancing in his friend’s eyes and his own heart swelled.

As they walked through the dappled light filtered by the yellowing leaves of the trees, Faramir felt nostalgia creep up on him. Peace had come at last to Gondor and she was beginning to flourish. Aragorn’s capacity to love and be loved had brought together the will of Men, Dwarves and Elves to rebuild Gondor’s cities and gardens, had reclaimed Minas Morgul from the shadows and secured Gondor’s friendship with her neighbors (for the most part, at least). And yet, Faramir thought, and yet those were interesting days, after the war. The bad was mostly behind us and the good was all ahead of us then, and I have never felt so alive as I did when love waxed new in my life.

Aragorn had fallen slightly behind him, and touched Faramir on the shoulder. Faramir stopped and turned around to face Aragorn, wondering if he had read his thoughts again. They had ever been alike, but these days there was almost nothing the one did not immediately apprehend in the other. Aragorn’s face wore a crooked smile, and his eyes told Faramir a story of admiration and gratitude which Faramir was now able to acknowledge and accept without doubt.

Aragorn’s hand touched Faramir’s head. “The setting sun glints golden in your hair,” he said, and Faramir saw an old but not forgotten look in his eye. “My love,” Aragorn said with emotion, “the sight of you still quickens my heart.”

And they came together in an embrace, and kissed each other as they had not kissed in quite some time, their mouths immediately recalling how to meet and join and part. Gently Faramir pushed Aragorn against a tree and pressed into him, feeling a wave of longing approach like an old friend. The feel of Aragorn’s firm body and rough hands against his skin was welcome and as always, Aragorn’s kisses had an Elvish art to them. But the years had cooled their passion first to embers then ash, and this part of their love now resembled more a gentle tide than the crashing surf it had once been. Gradually, their kisses quieted and they clung to each other in silence for a few minutes more before resuming their walk.

At the western edge of the orchard, Aragorn sat down beneath a tree and beckoned Faramir to join him. “Come,” Aragorn said, “lean into me. I want to feel your weight against me.”

Faramir sat between Aragorn’s legs and leaned back into the warmth of the one closest to him in all Arda. Aragorn wrapped his arms around Faramir and set his chin down on his shoulder, pressing their cheeks together. They watched as the setting sun lit up the peaks of the mountains in the distance.

“We should go back,” Aragorn suggested.

Faramir placed his hands on Aragorn’s and said, “Nay, love, let us stay here while there is still light. We deserve this moment for ourselves.”

Aragorn sighed and kissed him softly on the cheek, and in a silence that was full of meanings that they alone knew, they watched the light on the mountains fade from violet to blue.

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