Chapter 7: Boromir And Sméagol Go Home

Sméagol sat up a little and turned his head, looking out over the blasted and withered plains with a keen expression.

“Whatever is it?” said Boromir, attempting not to show alarm. 

“I hear-“ He broke off a moment. “It is- an Elf, and a Dwarf. O Boromir! Is it them?”

“Is it whom?” Not anyone from Rhûn, he hoped. An Elf from the far East had been in the negotiation room and he had been foully arrogant.

By way of answer Sméagol leaned forward and whistled. The sizable gaps between his teeth granted him a singularly piercing whistle. 

“Be merciful!” a distant voice answered. “I would like to keep my hearing!”

Boromir turned. “Gimli?” A horse approached, with two riders. “Ah! Them!”

He stopped the wagon. Legolas pulled rein alongside, greeting the two riders with a wide grin. Sméagol wriggled and shrilled like a happy dog. The poor creature had been so starkly homesick that familiar faces had undone him. Boromir was not immune to the feeling himself. And, though it seemed unlikely they would meet trouble at this stage, he must confess that after such a difficult journey he was glad not only for the companionship but for Legolas’ swift bow and Gimli’s stout axe. 

He laid a hand gently on Sméagol’s bone-jagged back and hailed his friends with the other hand. 

“Aha! We have caught you up!” said Gimli. “I said it could not be done but Legolas disputed me, and you see he has proved the victor! I owe him a round of ale, I fear.”

“A desperate price indeed,” said Legolas. “We are traveling to Minas Tirith.”

“And so are we,” said Sméagol. “We may travel together!”

Legolas gave the pair of them a wide smile. “You travel by night, do you not? I do not mind night-riding, but my horse may need rest.”

How did Elves know such things?

“I guessed because Sméagol Bright-eyes is not in the wagon,” said Legolas without being asked, “and he has made his seat comfortable for extended sitting.” Sméagol had tucked himself in with some blankets- he claimed to be well again but was still plainly seeking more comfort and warmth than his usual. 

“Elves do not sleep,” said Gimli. “He merely goes vague while we are walking together and that is his rest. He does it while we are riding!” 

“But Dwarves do sleep, to my memory,” said Boromir. “You need not feel constrained to follow our schedule.”

“O but there is no hurry,” said Sméagol. “We might wait a day and rest Legolas’ horse, and his Dwarf too. Or Sméagol can go back into the wagon.”

“Tis peaceful at night,” said Boromir. “I have had much speech in Rhûn.”

Sméagol shook his head. “They kept him for two weeks talking and talking and talking. But he must tell it. I was sick and shut up indoors.” 

Boromir told Legolas, the free-spirited Wood-elf, all about his Eastern cousin. Legolas laughed. 

“But much of that discussion is not pleasant telling,” said Boromir, “and only of use to Elessar. The journey was more difficult than I expected. Indeed I am pleased to see you. I am sure you can tell that this wagon and horse are neither of Gondor nor Rohan.”

Gimli plucked thoughtfully at his beard. “Indeed, I am not learned in horses but it is a strange animal to my eyes, and I see the iron fixtures on your wagon are not as they are made in Gondor.”

Boromir shook his head. “The first horse and wagon we lost soon after departure and he and I were forced to go on foot- and hands!” He gestured to his companion.

“It was lost, you say!” said Gimli. “I do not think you mislaid it after a picnic.”

“No. There was a trap along the path- some invention of Saruman worked by remnants of the White Hand. There was a struggle.”

“They regretted picking a fight with a General, I presume.”

“Indeed- but I may say things would have gone ill for me without Sméagol’s assistance.” Sméagol began to inspect the wagon’s floorboards. Legolas and Gimli were doughty warriors and they would both appreciate the nature of his help. Under ordinary circumstances a full account would have been not only appropriate but a duty of the Captain-General- but it was clear Sméagol did not want the matter spoken of. 

They were among friends- Legolas and Gimli could be satisfied without giving a full account. Boromir merely said: “The attackers overpowered and bound me- he was able to free me by stealth. It was quite a feat.”

“Then it was well that you brought him,” said Gimli. “Sméagol, I have never known you to be silent for so long, and about such singular events that concern you! Have you nothing to say about the matter?”

Sméagol swiped at his eyes. “It was dreadful seeing Boromir lying there tied up like a ham. I dreamt about it yesterday, gollum.” 

“It was unpleasant,” Boromir admitted. “It was hardly a glorious battle-tale that I would have spread to the bards.”

“But Boromir stayed up nights with Sméagol after and he wasn’t alone.” Sméagol laughed self-consciously. “Of course it is very nice to give us a wagon to ride in, very nice.”

“It is hard to be sociable traveling in such a fashion,” Legolas said. “Indeed it is lonesome to be wakeful when all else sleep! I am glad your hardships brought you companionship and it was not all misfortune.”

“Perhaps we may hear of what has brought you hither,” said Boromir. “I did not know either of you were planning a visit and had not hoped to see you.”

Legolas was happy to explain though there was not a great deal to it- he had business in Ithilien, and Gimli had been requested for stonework, and they had discovered they were both wanted in Gondor and decided to travel together, turning it into a pleasure-trip.

“Now it is doubly so, for we have double the friends in our party,” he concluded. 

The desolate Brown Lands seemed livelier after that. 

Sméagol wanted to show Legolas the stream he had found. Boromir had no interest in revisiting the stream and stayed at the camp he had made a small distance away. Before him lay a spread of the Easterling provisions he had purchased, alongside Gimli’s stores. “I am glad they suit you better than they suit me,” said Boromir.

“Ginger wafers,” said Gimli, who was seated cross-legged on the other side of the spread. “I have tasted their like before, they have made their way to the Lonely Mountain in trade a time or two.”

Boromir picked up a piece of the good, plain dried meat Gimli had set out. “Yet your own stores do not include them.”

“They are dearly had! Rhûnic merchants are legendary hagglers.”

“That is so. In the village I visited they knew I was constrained to purchase their wares or else I could not depart, and their aim was to take the whole of my purse.”

“They trade in a similar way with their ginger and turmeric. But you are not a stranger to spice yourself, unless I am badly misremembering that red powder you use in the White City. It could make a stone cry.”

“Aha, it may surprise you to learn I have no taste for food that pains the mouth so. Faramir, however, does. He is like our mother in that way, I was told.” He sighed. “I would pay dearly for a simple sausage with mustard. There is a good inn just into Rohan, incidentally, I would like to stop there a night.”

“When we do, I owe Legolas a round. There he is now.”

Legolas and Sméagol were returning, both had been splashing and were wild-eyed. “There is plant life growing in that stream,” said Legolas. “Nothing is destroyed forever!”

“The Eye is gone, it is gone!”

Boromir nodded. “Good!”

Gimli gestured to the food. “Come and see what he has brought from Rhûn, Legolas.”

Legolas sat beside him and Sméagol curled up at Boromir’s side.

“There was a horse in the Greenwood that looked- rather odd to my sight. I wonder if you would know if it, Legolas.” He described it. 

“Was it so different?” Sméagol asked, fidgeting with his hair. “We just thought it was a horsse!”

“That was a river-horse,” said Legolas. “They are not evil, but will bear you where you do not wish to go if you should attempt to ride.”

“They’re not for riding,” Sméagol said, bemused.

Gimli shook his head. “Strange things dwell in your neighborhood, Legolas.”

“Boromir did not like the shaggy man either,” said Sméagol.

“A shaggy Man?” Gimli raised an eyebrow. “I would think from the title that you mean a wandering Man but I do not think such a one would discomfit Boromir the Bold.”

“Twas no Man, twas something that looked rather like a pile of leaves. It followed us for the better part of a night.”

Legolas laughed. “They are harmless! It was probably lonely.”

Sméagol nodded vigorously. “That is what we told him, wouldn’t believe us. Made us make him go away.”

“The poor shaggy man.”

Gimli shook his head. “Harmless perhaps but I confess I would not wish for such a companion. You are all adding quickly to my stock of disconcerting tales of Greenwood. What other dread things did you come across?”

Boromir thought of the Hunt, and of Ishild and her crossbow. He looked at Sméagol beside him and chose not to speak of these things. “Nothing comes to mind but I wish to tell you of a foodstuff in Rhûn that is not present on the mat- they make pasta of a fashion but make it in a manner I have never encountered, they use lye! I have seen them break it in half before cooking it, at that!”

He went on about this for some time before he was forced to conclude that Legolas and Gimli were not as invested in pasta as he was. Sméagol had fallen asleep.

Faramir would care. So would Denethor, but he may care more than was good for his health. Boromir would have to use caution. 

“Prince Greenleaf! Lord Gimli!” The guard at the town gate bowed to them. Boromir was surprised a moment, but then he recalled that many in the town had proudly said the Elves of Greenwood stopped by on their usual route to Gondor, and Legolas would often have been with their party, not uncommonly with Gimli accompanying. 

Then he noted the guard looking at him in horrified recognition. Travel-worn and ragged, Boromir had passed through the town unknown before, but with two members of the Fellowship along his identity was more clear. 

“My lord. When you came before I- I did not-“ He dropped to one knee, in his discomfiture giving Boromir a little more respect than his station would ordinarily demand outside of Gondor.

“Kindly do not!” said Boromir. “If I had wished to be known, I would have told you I was Boromir. When you thought I was a stranger you yet treated me with all the respect I would have expected for my position, and it meant all the more. Stand!” He clapped the guard on his shoulder. “You do your job well.”

“I thank you, my lord,” the Man said. His eye fell on Sméagol, who was, at present, riding in the crook of Boromir’s arm. He had admitted to being weary. In fact he had slept a great deal of both the day and the night since Legolas and Gimli had joined the party, and might be asleep now.

“This is Sméagol,” said Boromir, and there he faltered. The guard did not know him by name. It seemed the tales of the hobbits had not spread so far- or perhaps not this particular hobbit. It did not seem adequate to simply call Sméagol a Halfling and leave it at that. 

Gimli stepped in. “Sméagol is a trusted friend of the lord Boromir!” he said, as if that were all that was needful. Perhaps it was.

“Very good,” said the guard.

The next stop was the inn, where Boromir was able to arrange for a message to be sent ahead of him to Minas Tirith, so the King would know he was returning. They took a room with only two beds, as Sméagol rested at the foot of Boromir’s bed (Boromir no longer even thought to deter him), and Legolas rested by sitting in a chair and staring at nothing. This habit no longer seemed so odd to Boromir now that he had seen Queen Evenstar doing it- sometimes during important functions, where it was rather an audacious thing to do. He had teased her for it. Seeing Legolas in his trance-sleep he missed the Queen. She had grown to seem dear as family and not only as ruler; something about her recalled Findulias.

He drifted to sleep thinking about it and woke to a clattering sound that proved to be Sméagol catching insects in the window. He seemed to be feeling better. 

Sméagol wept when Minas Tirith came into view. Well he may! It was a glorious sight! 

An outrider came to meet them, and by the time Boromir made it into the walls a welcome party had been assembled. He scanned the faces- guards and distinguished generals, good Men all-

“Faramir!”

Faramir, Eowyn and little Elboron upon her hip. Boromir made his way speedily to them and met with Faramir’s embrace.

“I had thought you would be in Ithilien-“

“We had word of your return.”

Eowyn smiled broadly. “I would not pass up the chance to hear of Rhûn!” She passed Boromir his squeaking nephew. Was it his imagination or had Elboron grown in his absence?

Soon behind them were Aragorn and Arwen, and Boromir was swept away, but suddenly he began to feel something was wrong.

Sméagol, his loyal shadow, was missing. Boromir had forgotten him- he had permitted him to be lost. He looked around. Gimli and Legolas were gone, too, for that matter, but they, he knew, had simply stepped back to permit his reunion with his brother. 

Before he could descend into much self-recrimination Boromir spotted his small friend, across the way- he was not lost but was having his own reunion with his friends and dear ones in Minas Tirith. He was difficult to spot because he was currently clasped in someone’s arms, in fact, it looked as if a few Men were taking turns holding him and being chattered at.

Boromir’s duties had been discharged.

It was some hours later, when they had dined together and Elboron had been carried off to bed, and Aragorn and Arwen retired to their royal chambers, and Boromir was left alone with his brother, that he raised the subject of his dream in the Brown Lands, by the stream. 

Faramir gazed thoughtfully into the hearth. He did not fear flames, though he had confessed a dislike of pyres, specifically. “Dreams may be of special import to the dreamer without arising from any outside source. Did you have any other dreams that night?”

“Why- yes, in fact, I dreamt of some past day during the War, and a soldier was present who went into a fainting spell- I took him out of the room towards the Houses of Healing and he claimed to be Sméagol. I have dreams about leading companies and planning battle-strategies often so it did not seem of much import, I took it to mean only that I had confused him in my mind with others under my command.” He decided he did not need to add that Faramir had been there, and younger than he had been when Boromir had assumed command in the real world. Faramir had his own lands and his own company. He was a husband and father. He should not be considered a child, even in dreams… and yet Boromir dreamt of the child Faramir often. Always in these dreams he looked haunted, too old for his years.

The Prince of Ithilien gazed calmly at him with eyes that suggested he guessed more than what Boromir had said, but when he spoke he did not suggest any knowledge of his own involvement. “To my ears, you feared, perhaps, that he did not have the strength to be treated as one of your company.”

“Perhaps.”

“I would not look for any magic, then, brother- I suspect you were preoccupied with Sméagol and his troubles, so your dreams fixed upon him. Perhaps you cast him as young and healthy because you love him and wish there was a way to see him restored.”

“Perhaps, yet he was not as I would have wished him. In the dream he was a desperately unhappy young Man, and lost on that small-minded clutch of hobbits, I fear; there was no call for the things he has shown himself so skilled at, he was chafing and unused.”

Faramir looked wry. “You called him a Man.”

“Did I?” Boromir laughed. “I have begun to forget there is any difference of kind between him and myself. Sometimes I am surprised to notice that his ears come to a point.”

“Then perhaps what you wish is to believe he is happier now in Gondor than he may have been if he had remained in his own time and place, to live and die among the river-hobbits.” 

“He may be,” Boromir suggested. “Although the horrors that happened between that time and now…” He ran his hand over his chin. “Surely there are many who wish he had stayed by the River. And yet if he had, what of Sauron?”

“He did not remain by the River, nor are we permitted to know what may have been.” Faramir considered the matter a moment, and added: “It is the way of hobbits to excel at bravery and adventure, and yet to choose to live their whole lives in safety so that their skills need never be used or discovered. I do not think it folly, I have rather thought that they have discovered the best way to succeed at travelling is to find a pleasant place and never depart from it.”

Eowyn entered then, having heard this last statement and laughing at it. “Just as the greatest victor in a war is the one who keeps it from beginning.” She came and kissed Faramir and sat beside him, and then she began to ask about the horses of Rhûn, and the conversation was diverted to a lighter turn.

“It does seem to me an odd dream, for its detail if nothing else.”

“Yes- I was all different all over. Not like normal dreams, where you don’t see anything wrong, and then you wake up and say, ‘Why was I a mouse?’”

Strider laughed. Sméagol had gotten used to the idea that Aragorn occasionally laughed at his pert remarks, so he managed not to startle, but he did look away a moment to collect himself. He noted something new hanging on the wall of the King's office. It looked as if Evenstar had done a bit of calligraphy in Elf-letters.

“It is an intriguing tale,” said Aragorn. “This stream you describe- was it close enough to Greenwood to have its source there?” 

“Yes, yes.”

“There are many streams and rivers in that forest that have strange effect. I think it is safe to assume you swam in it and drank its waters.”

“I did. Yes. And Boromir did. We was both in at once I think, one time. I was jusst sitting in it because the cold water was so nice, and he was upstream washing his handses. Then later we came back, with Legolas, gollum, and his friend Gimli, and I showed Legolas the water. He touched it and I touched it but we did not touch it at the same time. And no dreamses then. Nothing that was not normal.”

“This is the type of story I hope to hear from you when you make these reports. Boromir said nothing of the stream. I do not think he realized it may be of interest.”

“I don’t know if he dreamed too,” said Sméagol. “He had a funny look when I waked up. I did not ask. I thought, perhaps he did dream and it wasn’t nice.”

“That was kind of you. I may ask him. Do you recall any other dream from that night, or only the one you recounted?”

Sméagol rocked back and forth and hissed, trying to remember. “Yes, I think, about the old, old days. Before. When Sméagol was young. Because I heard the running water in my sleep. When I hears it I dream of the River. Gran was there. Déagol was there, perhaps, maybe. I- I dream about saying and doing things different with Déagol. Because I wish I could. But can’t go back. I don’t remember anything else, gollum.”

“I see. I may say, it is possible there was no enchantment at work. You have spent much time with Boromir in his own lands where he is at ease and in control, even when traveling in out of the way places. You had just seen for the first time that he can be hurt, and may need you for more than just companionship. I do not think you ever expected him to need your teeth. And so in your dreams you saw him as a youth.”

Sméagol nodded and raised his hand to his mouth to nibble on his fingernails- he caught himself before he could actually begin doing it. “Yes, yes, perhaps.”

“And, in my experience,” Aragorn continued, “it is keeping with your character for you to recall in the back of your thoughts that Faramir is the younger brother, and summon him to appear as a child, to keep everything in its proper place.”

“Perhaps. Our character?”

“You seem to like things to fit neatly together, Sméagol. At least, when they do not, you take an intense notice of it.” He seemed to notice that Sméagol was wondering if this was not quite nice, and moved past it quickly. “But this tendency has served you well. You notice many things.” 

“Sss. Do you see them that way?”

“Are you asking if I see Boromir and Faramir as children?”

Sméagol shrugged a little. “Sss- well, yes.”

“As I said, you notice many things.”

“No, we just guessed, because he is King. And he is older.”

“Did you know I held Boromir in my arms shortly after he was born? And there was a time when I believed I was holding him at the moment of his death.”

Sméagol felt the importance of this but had no words for it. Aragorn looked into his face and nodded as if he were pleased. “Ah,” he said, “but I have not invited you here to speak of myself! I would have your impressions of Rhûn but I know you may have little to say on that front. I am told you were ill. I am sorry to hear it. What was your trouble?”

Sméagol gave his paltry impressions of Rhûn, and then spent some time going over his health, which he found a tiresome subject, especially when speaking with the King, because he so badly wanted to fix things that could not be fixed. 

“They ought not have used camphor,” he said at one point, “did it not blister your chest?”

It had. This led Sméagol into the subject of how he felt he had been treated in Rhûn.

“Boromir said nothing of this. Did you conceal it from him?” Aragorn asked.

“Yes, I did, didn’t say anything. I thought- he couldn’t do anything.”

“Good! You judge well. He would have been furious. You may have averted a war by not telling him.” 

Sméagol nodded. “Yes, we thought he would be very angry, angrier than he ought to be, they was only a bit inhosspitable.” 

“It must have been tempting to let him take vengeance on them.”

“No,” said Sméagol, “no, not really- no- perhaps a bit- no, they had not really done anything wrong, we just didn’t like them much.”

“Good! You have proved more trustworthy than I dreamed. I may say I did not dare hope for as much from you as this- do you know that because of you I have this intelligence, and without you I may still be negotiating ransom with bandits for my Captain-General? Else grieving his death, if they were so close to finding him too much risk. I feel you merit some reward, will you tell me no?”

Sméagol did not outright refuse a reward but he told Aragorn about the old woman in the Greenwood and her crossbow. 

Aragorn grew somber. “That grieves me to hear. Of course this was known to me- you and I have discussed it more than once, and it was already confessed. But I had yet hoped there may be some mistake, since you had said your memory could not be relied on.”

Sméagol shook his head and looked down at his hands. “I still cannot remember, just pictures, perhaps, like dreams. But she knew me. I must have done it.” 

Scents flitted caressingly past his face from the window, stone towers and fountains, and the multitude of plant life in the King’s garden. 

“Alas for her!” Aragorn cried. “I would give much if such a loss could be restored. Yet I would not see you slain for a deed done in madness, for that would not restore her either.” 

“And yet- she was right, wasn’t she?” Sméagol was quite calm and wondered if he seemed too cold, and struck the King as hard of heart. Perhaps he was. It was hard to summon emotion for something he did not recall doing, when the facts were clear and had already been discussed, and there was no debate to be had. Sméagol had killed innocents and in fairness ought to be killed. Aragorn did not want him to be killed. Sméagol must defer to his judgement and in any case he did not want to die. The matter must rest there. Perhaps he ought not to have brought up the matter of Ishild at all, but it seemed as if the King ought to know.

“Did she say to you precisely what she saw?” Aragorn asked.

In fact she had not. In thinking on it he saw that her story left room for some slight doubts, if unlikely ones. He saw also that Aragorn, liking to believe people to be better than they were, would seize on those doubts. So, instead of saying that Ishild had been vague on some points, Sméagol recounted what he thought she had seen, while carefully avoiding saying outright that she had seen it.

Aragorn was quiet when he had finished.

The air through the window spoke insistently of green things and Men’s stewardship of the land. Queen Evenstar was out in the garden now. She was too far away to hear words, but she was speaking in the tone she used to explain the healing plants there to her little son. It was a set of smells and sounds that made it seem as if Mordor was farther away than it was- far, far away, that it had never been real at all. Perhaps this was why Faramir was so keen on planting gardens.

Aragorn shook his head. “You must never again enter Greenwood.”

“I will not. I sswear it.”

He had never meant to pester the Wood-men but the sounds of the Hunt had chased him in. They were harmless, normally, the Hunt; they only tracked down the Dead who had not gone home when they ought to. But Sméagol was wary of them possibly making a mistake in his case, because he ought to have died a long time ago.

The breeze shifted, with a new garden-smell on it. Sun on the daisies, it was.

Aragorn was looking out the window. Perhaps he heard his wife and baby outside and wanted to join them. In any case he must be tiring of Sméagol and his dark, dreary tales, pulling him away from the brightness of his victorious city and back into shadows and blood. It would be best to conclude things quickly- Sméagol did not want to be dismissed before he had told all, and have to come back.

“There was one more thing. We traded for a horn. Of one of the oxen of the East.”

Aragorn’s brow furrowed. “Do I take your meaning correctly?”

“Yes. I think. Is it right?” Sméagol took the horn out of his satchel and set it on the desk. “We was told it is from the Kine of Araw and it looks right enough. But he knows that of course. He’s seen one before. I wondered- of course it will never be the same. But I thought. I thought.”

“You thought,” said Aragorn. “My thought is that it looks very like the Horn of Gondor. I have long wished I might restore it. I almost spoke of it to you.”

“I traded an orc for it. Perhaps he would rather an orc had not touched it, but that was the only way to get one.” He told the full story of Skog as Aragorn picked up the horn and investigated it.

Sméagol finished by saying: “It could not be the same as the one he lost. It was special! From his father and his father’s father! And this one’s from an orc, ach! Sméagol’s not stupid,” he babbled. “But we, I, we- I- I thought perhaps- I thought you would know what to do with it! Perhaps he wouldn’t want it. I wouldn’t want- gollum, gollum! I wouldn’t want- a ring.” He felt sick even saying it, and had to sit a moment breathing evenly with his hand on his stomach.

“Indeed not! But this is different, I would not pretend it to be the same horn, and would have it wrought diffently as well- and you say it is from the orc whose life Boromir spared? That is singular. I think I may find a story of its origin that would persuade Boromir to accept it. But he may insist on passing it to Faramir, or even back to me.”

“It would be his to do with as he likes once it is given to him. He has said he wishes his brother might have the Horn.”

“He has said so to me as well! I think he wishes we all three might possess it. I thank you for your assistance to him, Sméagol. Would that your past could be undone, but I am pleased by how you are using the present. And now I will not weary you with further talk.”

Sméagol wasn’t weary, it was only a polite way to kick him out. Sometimes Aragorn seemed young, too- though not as young as Boromir. He smiled a little and left as he was bidden, and went away home.