#thorongil

“I want my Ada,” Boromir declared after a few hicupp-filled-false-starts. 

The strange man looked nonplussed. “Who is your Ada?” he said stupidly. 

Boromir did try to be brave. He always tried, as well as he could manage it, but that was too much, and he began to sob again. 

The man’s eyes widened in horror. Quickly, he said, “Is he one of the Citadel guards? The ones in the black and silver?”

Boromir thought for a bit. His father always dressed in black and silver, but he was sure that Ada wasn’t a guard. What was it that Ada’s Ada had called what he did in the big tower? It was a big word, and it had something to do with soup. Nana had said so. 

“Soup?” He tried experimentally.

“He’s a cook then, in the kitchens?”

“No.” Boromir knew that, he wasn’t one year old!

“Other kind of soup?” He tried again. 

The dark-haired man sat back on his haunches and thought. “Stew?”

Boromir nodded fast. “Nana said what Ada’s going to do one day had something to do with stew.”

“What’s his name?” The man asked.

“Dunno,” Boromir said stoutly, after all, what kind of two year old knew that about his Ada?

“What’s your name?” The man said next. 

“Boromir!” Boromir shouted, excited to know an answer at last. 

“Ohhhhh,” said the man. “You mean Steward, little lordling, not stew. I will take you to your Ada. May I pick you up?”

Boromir considered all this new information. “Are you sure it’s steward?”

“Pretty sure,” the man said. “Does your Ada’s Ada sit in a big room on some steps?”

Boromir nodded. 

“Excellent,” the man said. “May I pick you up and take you to your Ada?”

This time, Boromir reached up his hands to be picked up. Then it seemed they went all sorts of places and talked to all sorts of people, and then the man asked whether he’d like to go to his Naneth instead. This he resisted strongly. He had come to see his Ada, and his Ada he would see. 

“Very well,” the man said with a sigh. 

Then they went on walking for another very long time and then the man talked to another man for a while in whispers, and then two doors were thrown open and somebody shouted much too loudly, “The Lord Boromir to see the Lord Denethor!”

The man who was carrying him bowed a little over Boromir and said, “Forgive me, my Lord Ecthelion, I found the Lord Boromir in one of the armory corridors and he insisted on seeing his Adar.”

“IT’S ADA!” screamed Boromir at the top of his lungs. 

Quickly, someone stood up from the group of the men around the table and hurried over. It was his Ada!

“Down, please,” he said to the man and he was promptly set on his feet. He did not notice his Ada’s Ada saying to the man who had rescued him, “Never mind, Captain Thorongil, we must make excuses for the needs of our little Boromir. Join us. My son, do you return Boromir—”

“Can I stay, please?” Boromir rushed in as his father picked him up.

“You are over-young, beloved one,” said his Ada’s Ada.

“And you are in need of a nap,” his Ada said. 

“I’m alright,” Boromir insisted. 

His Ada’s Ada sighed and waved his hand in assent, and his Ada squeezed him tight and murmured, “Be good, my little jewel,” in his ear. 

He didn’t make it through the whole council, though, because he fell asleep, but he surfaced for the end of the meeting. All the men talked at each other, back and forth and back and forth. His Ada and his friend that rescued him seemed to talk most though, and afterwards others stopped talking. Then everyone got up and started towards the door. He pulled his Ada’s sleeve and whispered loudly, “Who’s the man I came in with?”

“That would be Captain Thorongil,” his Ada said.

“Can I thank him?”

He felt his Ada sigh, but he called Captain Thorongil over to him and then nudged Boromir. 

Boromir, sitting in his Ada’s lap, said seriously to the Captain, “Do you think you could shrink a bit? I can’t talk to you up there.”

Obligingly, Thorongil knelt down beside him. 

“How may I serve you, little lord?” he asked gently.

“I wanted to thank you for finding me my Ada, Captain Thorongil! Please and thank you!” Boromir announced grandly.

Thorongil smiled. “Anytime, my lord Boromir. Though you should not wander about in that place, for there are sharp things there that might hurt your lordship.”

“He is quite right, Boromir,” his father said chidingly. “You could have been hurt badly. You mustn’t go there without me, do you hear?”

“Yes, Ada,” Boromir said quickly. “I won’t go there or get lost again, Captain Thorongil!”

“I am glad to hear it,” said Thorongil. 

Boromir smiled happily and looked at his Ada. “Is it dinner time now?”

“I should think so, child. Shall we go to your mother and eat with her?” Ada said. 

“Please and thank you!” Boromir shouted once again. 

“You may get up and go, Captain Thorongil,” said Ada’s Ada. “It is not only Boromir that needs to eat after all.”

Boromir’s Captain regained his legs and bowed from the waist. “Yes, my lord, thank you. My lord Denethor,” he acknowledged, inclining his head and looking at Boromir’s Ada, before he turned and left. 

“So that’s your name, Ada!” Boromir put in as the door closed. 

His Ada looked surprised. “Why yes, child, didn’t you know?”

Boromir shook his head. “It was quite difficult not knowing. Next time could you tell me?”

All about her sat men and women of the Mark, honored guests, her father and his royal retinue. A great victory had been won, and now the people applied themselves to enjoyment with all the same zeal they had brought to the battlefield. Heaping trays of food crowded the big wooden tables, and cups were in every hand, sloshing fragrant mead over their rims with each enthusiastic slap of a back, guffawing laugh or dramatic sweep of an arm as the victory was retold and embellished in a hundred different variations. But amidst all this laughter, frivolity and singing, a prickly air of barely suppressed vexation hung about Théodwyn, who found herself trapped at the very end of a long bench with only the displeasing company of the traveling warrior Thorongil at her side.

She barely knew him, it was true. But she knew enough to have already sniffed out that there was just something off about the man. She had felt it from their very first meeting, a troublesome little current of suspicion that swelled up any time she was in his presence and plagued her like a pebble in her boot or a scratchy woolen dress that itched her arms and neck. She struggled to put into words exactly what he’d ever said or done to raise her ire, and yet it was there all the same. It was an impulse, a visceral response coming not from her head but from her gut, and Théodwyn always trusted her gut. He might have been full of courtly words and clever ideas, but when he spoke she only ever had one reflexive and immediate instinct. Liar.

Disliking him proved a lonely proposition, but it was one that she clung to all the more stubbornly as he inexplicably gained more and more respect among her countrymen. He had already risen from humble soldier to a captain who rivaled their own marshals for rank and authority, and all while fighting with them only intermittently between lengthy sojourns to Gondor and who knows where else. It was galling to Théodwyn to watch the whole of the Mark be taken in so thoroughly by this dodgy stranger who was skillful with a sword and even more skillful with a secret. But at least she knew that Théodwyn, daughter of Thengel, would not be so easily fooled.

Her present seating predicament was no doubt the work of her mother, who pushed Thorongil into her path at every opportunity in the hopes he’d take a liking to her. She doubted that she’d ever be able to curb Morwen’s unsubtle attempts at matchmaking, but she could at least ensure that Thorongil himself saw no hope in it. She wanted nothing to do with him, and she would give him no cause to think otherwise by engaging in the charade of courteous small talk now. It would be a shame to sacrifice a much anticipated feast night to hours of tedious silence, but that was a sacrifice she was wholly willing to make, if only she could get him to still his own tongue as well.

Fortunately, years of being forced to listen to her older sisters drone on about her failings in matters of etiquette and propriety had prepared her with a trusty strategy for just such an occasion. She would make a game of finding increasingly off-putting ways to ignore whatever was being said to her until the speaker simply gave up in fruitless exasperation. It nearly always worked, and she was certain it would work again tonight.

Thorongil had spent enough time among the nobility of both Mundburg and Edoras to know the art of polite conversation, and he was certainly trying his best with her now. He began with charming anecdotes and tales of faraway lands, and when they failed to yield any reaction, he pivoted to other approaches. Poems he thought she might like, gracious questions about her own thoughts and opinions, even a few clumsy attempts at mild flattery to engage her interest. But she steadfastly refused to give him anything in response. She pretended not to hear his words, or she yawned loudly over his voice, allowing her eyes to wander off as if in search of better amusement. When that ran its course, she instead stared silently and intensely at a single point just beside his mouth and laughed to herself when he began self-consciously dabbing at the perfectly clean spot with his napkin, increasing the urgency of his efforts with each apparently futile attempt to tidy whatever had caught her focus.

It was diverting enough for a young woman with no other option for entertainment, but, alas, it did not seem to have the ultimate desired effect because he continued on gamely with fresh topics no matter how outlandishly she resisted the conversation. She was considering, then, the most melodramatic means by which to feign a fainting spell when her mother managed to catch her eye from across the room, sending her a look more pointed than any sword or spear. Don’t be rude, Morwen mouthed clearly, and then set her lips into a straight line of the most disapproving sort.

Théodwyn had seen that look often enough to know what it meant. Her mother had always allowed her some measure of freedom to do and say what she pleased, as the fifth and female child of a royal house shouldered few responsibilities or expectations. But Morwen’s patience was not infinite. She could be pushed too far, and much sooner than Thengel, who was notoriously easy on his youngest child. My little joy, he called her, even when she had ceased to be so little. His doting affections, though, would still yield to the demands of his queen on questions of proper ladyhood for their daughters, and so if Théodwyn was to avoid punishment after the feast, she knew she would have to at least give the appearance of compliance with Morwen’s wishes.

She cut her eyes back over to Thorongil, who was now yammering on about some horse that belonged to an elf he claimed to know. No doubt he thought horses were a good topic for any conversation in the Mark, and, in all honesty, it did sound like quite an impressive animal. She made a mental note to ask the royal horsemaster later about this so-called ‘elf-horse’ and whether he had ever heard of such a thing. But in the meantime, if she would be forced to talk to this most dubious of men, she would do it on her own terms rather than his.

“I’m told you’re not originally from Gondor,” she said abruptly, interrupting him mid-sentence. “And yet you bear a Sindarin name.”

He looked up in surprise at the sound of her voice at last. “That is true,” he answered.

“So if you’re not from Gondor, then where is your home?”

“In the north.”

She arched a brow. “Could you perhaps be more specific? The north is an awfully big place.”

“It is. And I have lived in many parts of it over the years.”

He maintained a placid expression, but she had the distinct sense that he knew his answer had been evasive. Indeed, for a man as famously talented as he was, evasiveness seemed to be his strongest skill. He had been coming and going from the Mark for years, and yet all anyone knew for sure about him could be recited in half a minute’s work. To accept such an outsider without any real sense of who he was or where his loyalties might lie was absurd to Théodwyn even if no one else seemed to share her concerns in this particular case.

“Who is your father then?” she persisted.

“He died when I was still a child.”

“That does not answer my question.”

He shifted uneasily in his seat. Of all the things he’d expected of Rohan’s youngest princess, an interrogation was clearly not one of them. “It was long ago and far from here. Would his name even mean anything to you?”

“That depends on what name you give. Why don’t you try me?” She stared hard at him for a moment, and when he mustered only a sheepish smile in response, she waved a hand in frustrated dismissal. “Yet another secret of the mighty Thorongil. Add it to the pile.”

“Have I perhaps done something to offend you, Lady Théodwyn?” His hand drifted back to the spot by his mouth, giving it one last quick brush with his fingers. “If so, I give you my sincerest apologies and assure you the offense was entirely unintentional.”

“I doubt that very much. Because what primarily offends me is the way that you continually appear here every so often to ingratiate yourself with my father and the lords of this land, all while lying to them at every moment. That seems quite intentional to me.” Her eyes narrowed, and she dropped her voice, leaning in closer to him to be heard. “I don’t know who you are, but I know that your name is not Thorongil. That is plain enough to see, even if everyone else around her refuses to see it. You are not who you claim to be. And because a good man does not tell falsehoods to those he calls friends, I can only assume that you are not a good man. For all I know, you seek to take advantage of my father somehow.”

“I have no such intention, I promise you.” He spoke sharply, and for the first time, he looked her directly in the eye. But his tone immediately softened. “I imagine that you are not inclined to believe my word alone, but I hope that my actions, at least, would support me. I’ve fought alongside the Rohirrim for years now, and always with loyalty and distinction. Can that not be enough?”

“For some, it is,” she conceded. “For me, it only makes your incessant need for secrecy all the stranger. If you’re really our friend, you should not fear to be honest with us. But I can see that we are not going to resolve this here tonight.” She stole a glance in her mother’s direction only to find Morwen’s gaze as much on her as ever, though now she looked pleased and even hopeful. That satisfied little smile, the proof that she was getting her way, irked Théodwyn all the more, and she turned back to Thorongil determined to provoke him further. “In that case, then, the other point of contention between us is my mother’s desire that I marry you.”

His cup was at his lips, and he choked on the mouthful of ale he’d just swallowed. “Oh,” he stammered out after much coughing. “I… I am very flattered, Lady Théodwyn. Truly. And I—”

Her laugh cut off his fumbling words. “You seem to have confused my mother’s will for my own, Thorongil. Or you assume that my own will doesn’t matter.” She made a tsk’ing noise and shook a finger at him. “That may be how they do things in your homeland, wherever that is, but here in the Mark a woman cannot be forced into a marriage she does not want. And I don’t want to be married to you. I can’t even imagine why my mother thinks it’s a good idea. You must be nearer my father’s age than mine, after all.” She paused to eye him appraisingly. “How old are you anyway?”

He looked away again. “Older than you. How much older is difficult to convey. The question is not as straightforward as you might think.”

“Is it not? I was born 17 years ago and so I am 17. Do numbers work differently where you’re from?” She smirked, reveling in his discomfort. “In the north?”

“You seem determined to make this conversation difficult for me.”

“Well I’m certainly not trying to make it easy. If there is one thing you take from this dinner, I hope it is the crystal clear understanding that I don’t need some mysterious sword-for-hire with unstated motives to come in and sweep me off my feet. It doesn’t matter how badly my mother wants that to happen. So if that’s what you’re looking to do, you can go back to Gondor and try your luck there instead. I hear Denethor’s wife is unhappy. Maybe you could please her? She’s got questionable enough taste in men to take a shine to you. But as for me, I intend to marry a man of the Mark. One who is very clear about who he is, what he wants and why he does what he does.”

Her eyes strayed across the room, and he followed them to Éomund, seated beside his father amongst the men of Aldburg.

“So you wish to be closer to Éofara’s son?”

She looked away quickly, mortified, and though she commanded herself not to blush, that only guaranteed that the blood rushed to her face all the faster. A harsh retort came to her lips, some cheap barb about Thorongil’s stork-like legs or his scraggly beard that even the Rohirrim stableboys could best — anything to distract from the embarrassment of having her feelings perceived, and by the worst person she could imagine. But at the last moment, she held back her insult. Embarrassment aside, she didn’t want to give up a chance to talk further of Éomund, as such chances did not often present themselves. And what did it matter if Thorongil knew of her attraction to the dashing young rider from the East-mark? His own vexing presence was soon to be gone anyway, heading out on some self-indulgent seeker’s journey to Rhûn. She abandoned any attempt at nonchalance and turned to face him instead. “What do you know of Éomund?” she demanded.

“A bit. He rode with his father in the last few campaigns I joined alongside the Rohirrim. He seems a good man, if overly impetuous.”

“Here in the Mark, we call that spirited,” she said hotly.

He smiled and held up a hand of conciliation. “Spirited indeed. Are you well acquainted with Éomund yourself?”

“Sadly no.” She knew him best from events like this one, where she watched him from a distance and admired his bold and confident manner. Surrounded by men much his senior, he still looked every bit their equal, and his uncommon bravery in battle was already well known in many corners of the land despite his relative youth. But she had not often been able to contrive a reason to speak with him, and when she had, her mother had been there to ensure that nothing particularly interesting was said by either party. “I believe his éored keeps him quite busy. He is very passionate about his duties and is rarely enough at leisure to pursue other interests.”

“He looks at leisure now,” observed Thorongil.

He wasn’t wrong. Watching Éomund from the corner of her eye, he looked the very picture of relaxation, laughing and stretched back in his chair with one large hand behind his head and the other wrapped around a mug. But he was also on the far side of the room, about as distant from her as was possible in the big, timbered hall. She sighed. “You’re right. And yet, my mother has seated me next to you and not to him.”

He looked thoughtful for a moment, and then nodded his head, as though some decision had been reached in his mind. “I trust in the judgment of your good lady mother in seating her own parties, but perhaps she was unaware that I have need to speak with Éofara before I leave for my eastward journey.” He tossed his napkin onto the table in front of them and came to his feet. “It’s a timely need, one that I fear can only be met by evicting young Éomund from his place so that I may occupy it in his stead.” He paused and then smiled. “In which case, of course, he would be more than welcome to take my own seat.”

She looked up sharply, surprised. “You would send him here?”

“I would.”

It was a kind offer, she couldn’t deny, and he had given it with neither condescension nor mockery. In fact, if anything, he looked sympathetic, as though he knew what it was to be kept separate from someone the heart was attached to. It was almost enough to make her feel some friendly affection for him, though she certainly would not permit herself to go so far. He was still a dishonest itinerant of unknown intentions, after all. “Maybe you are not entirely an ill,” she allowed with some reluctance, and he laughed.

“Maybe not.”

**********

“The Captain Thorongil, to see you milady.”

“We’re certainly having a lot of visitors today,” Finduilas commented to Rhysnaur, “alright show him in.”

“My Lady,” the Captain greeted with a formal bow, and then a nod to herself. “Rhys.”

“Adawn!” little Boromir cried out, and without any warning, slid from Finduilas’ lap, speeding towards Thorongil with outstretched arms. “Adawn! Pick up!”

Thorongil spared a glance to Finduilas, and upon receiving permission, stooped down to scoop up the toddler. And promptly tucked him under one arm like a sack of potatoes as he continued across the room to join their company.

“I apologise for intruding,” Thorongil said, apparently oblivious to upside-down-Boromir’s shrieks of delight from near his elbow, “but I had been looking for Rhys.”

“You’ve found her,” Finduilas replied, at the same time Rhysnaur declared, “and here you find me!”

“I’ve just come from a meeting with Stewards Ecthelion,” he said by way of explanation.

Rhysnaur immediately noted that he was far cleaner than she’d last seen him, and he’d changed out of his previous doublet and tunic. He’d not come straight from the meeting, but had detoured to clean up and change it seemed. Only a little lie so she wouldn’t call him out on it until in private.

“Oh, and has he granted you permission?” Rhysnaur asked, turning her attention back to her knitting with some amusement.

“In short, yes.”

Her head swivelled back to focus on him so sharply that something clicked in her neck.

Boromir had been repositioned and was now entirely upside down in Thorongil’s arms, his legs kicking at the air level with the Captain’s shoulders. Finduilas watching with some amusement, and very little concern, clearly trusting that her firstborn was in safe hands. Even if he was upside down.

But Ecthelion had agreed to Thorongil’s suggestions? They were to sail out and tackle the threat head on? Bema’s Bow she’d been joking with Rhosthain, and said it was unlikely that they’d be sent out. But here Thorongil was scarcely two hours later, with permission.

A peculiar mixture of excitement and anxiety thrummed through her.

“The situation with the Corsairs?” Finduilas asked, earning surprised looks, she gave an elegant shrug of her shoulder as she turned back to her tapestry. “Father has been worrying over it for some time, your words have been making him reconsider. I’m glad to hear that he’s made a decision.”

“Indeed…” There was clear hesitancy in Thorongil’s voice, but he didn’t disagree with the Lady’s words. Instead, the Captain righted Boromir, and set him down, sinking into a crouch alongside the toddler, who immediately started inspecting the silver star pinned upon his doublet. “Nothing set in stone yet, the next step is figuring out how we’re to deal with them.”

“Ah, planning meetings, delightful,” Rhysnaur sighed, returning her attention to the yarn in her lap, needles clacking as she wove. “Unless there’s a considerable number of pastries at them, I’m inclined to leave it to you, Captain.”

“I’ll have some sent over,” Finduilas said to Thorongil. “We can’t have your best rider missing out on the planning.”

“There’s no horses at sea, she can remain behind for all I care.”

“Ass!” Rhysnaur exclaimed, earning a very frosty glare for her language, “—if I would let you leave without me,” she amended swiftly enough that the toddler was oblivious, and Finduilas’ glare quickly thawed. “You’re going to need all the hands you can get with this one, leaving me behind would be a mistake.”

The amused look Thorongil gave her suggested he doubted that, but no actual disagreement rose to his lips, so she took it to mean he had none.

“Denethor had actually been discussing it yesterday over dinner,” Finduilas was saying, her attention still on the tapestry, and missing the shared glance between Rhysnaur and Thorongil. “He’d received reports on how the coastal villages were faring, what they’re going through sounds harrowing.”

Rhysnaur, didn’t believe Denethor one bit. The Corsairs had been threatening the coastlines of Gondor for decades, the Steward’s son had plenty of time to reconsider, why change now?

“Do you have a length of yarn I can have?” Thorongil requested from his seat on the floor with Boromir. An unsubtle change of subject if ever there was one, but she wasn’t about to protest it.

“I do one momen—and I forgot my shears,” Rhysnaur sighed, looking through her satchel.

A gentle snk-snk sounded, and she looked up to find Finduilas wordlessly offering her own bird shaped ones. A quick snip, and a length of midnight blue yarn was passed to Thorongil. Apparently the Captain had some sort of trick to show Boromir, as he twisted a knot to tie the two ends together, and then proceeded to weave his fingers through it until the length of yarn formed a shape.

“See the city wall?” he asked the child, displaying the complex weaving he’d managed to construct between his fingers. “And if I drop these, look, the White Tower.”

Boromir was more than a little delighted by this display, clapping at his hands and watching in fascination as Thorongil went through a few more shapes. A ship, a hammock, a swan, even managing to contort the string into the rough shape of a rabbit.

He wasn’t the only one entranced, as Rhysnaur’s needles had come to a stop, eyes trying to follow the progression of Thorongil’s hands, the deft movement of his fingers as he wove the yarn between them. Whatever magic trick this was, the Captain had clearly spent a lot of time learning how to do it, as not once did the yard tangle or snare.

“And then, back to the ship again,” he announced, as the yarn slipped seamlessly into the distinctive appearance of a ship’s prow.

“Oh!” Finduilas exclaimed so loudly, that all three of them jumped in surprise. “Would it be terribly uncouth to have a nautical themed birthday?” she asked, “I’d hate for you to think I was mocking your mission against the corsairs, but I do so love the sea.”

“I see no probable with that,” Rhysnaur replied, looking to Thorongil for confirmation.

His eyes were on the tapestry beneath Finduilas’ slender hands, a frown of consideration on his face as he studied it. “What about a Dol Amroth theme?” he suggested, looking up to meet the Lady’s eyes. “It would honour both you and your family and could cover a range of decorations and displays.”

“Oh that’s perfect!”

“I’m sure the King will have no complaints against that,” Rhysnaur commented wryly.

As Finduilas laughed, Thorongil’s eyes snapped to her, head tilting with a frown, clearly missing out on what the joke was.

“I was worried about decorating the King’s Halls so outlandishly,” Finduilas explained, a broad smile still on her fine features, as she leant down to gather the restless Boromir back into her lap. “But Rhys thinks that the King wouldn’t mind if I did so.”

For a brief moment, Rhysnaur watched as Thorongil’s eyes narrowed in something strangely like suspicion, but then he shook his head ruefully as he coiled the length of yarn about his wrist and rose to his feet.