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When the hosts of Gondor and Rohan returned to Minas Tirith Faramir went to the Gate to crown his king.
Afterwards, there was a great feast, and the Riders of Rohan and the Captains of Gondor mingled with the nobles and the common folk of the Southern realms.
Faramir had moved through the crowd until he was at its edges, and had found himself in the private garden that had formerly been reserved for the Steward and Steward's kin, though now, he supposed, the King would decide what would happen to it.
The garden was quiet, the kind of peace shrouded by safety and joy that had been scarce to find during the war. Many-coloured that had burst into bloom with the defeat of the Sauron adorned the bishes, shining with the light of the waning moon.
A throat cleared behind him.
When Faramir turned (his hand to the pommel of his sword, for he was yet used mostly to war), the King of Rohan inclined his head in a short bow.
Faramir returned the bow hastily, more deeply. "Your Majesty."
"Please." King Éomer—Éomer King as the Rohirrim styled him—crossed the space between them until he was standing almost in front of Faramir. "There is no need to stand on formalities, my Lord Steward. Éomer is well enough, for my uncle is still king to me."
"Then call me Faramir," Faramir said, falling back into the practiced ease of his court manners rather than admitting to the sudden fellowship that arose as the King addressed Faramir in the manner of his father.
"I shall." The king smiled down at Faramir, and Faramir realized with a start he was close enough to tower over Faramir, his deep blue eyes tinkling with warmth and good humour. Then, "In truth, I searched you out for a purpose."
"Oh?" Faramir twisted his hands together, raised one eyebrow.
"I wish," the kin—Éomer said in his deep voice, "to thank you for all you have done for my sister. She has told me of the comfort you offered her in her times of trial while healing. I do not know what she would have done had you not extended your hand to her."
Faramir blinked (and almost blushed, but he was the Steward of Gondor now and the Steward of Gondor did not blush). Quickly collecting himself, he said, "I offered her my friendship because I saw in her someone who was going through the same pain and grief I was. And in truth, her friendship has aided me and provided me succour. So you see, it is an equal give and take on our part."
"That may be, but it is my duty as a king and as a brother to thank her."
"And it is my duty," Faramir murmured (ignoring the way the moonlight glittered on the king's golden hair, almost crowning him, the same golden hair that had drawn Faramir’s eyes to him at the Gate), "to thank the Rohirrim, for without you Minas Tirith would have fallen and the traditions of the West been destroyed."
"We only managed to come to your aid in time because of the valiant actions of your own soldiers."
Faramir should be thankful for the compliment, but it only brought flashes of anger and pain and heartbreak to his memories. His men, his brother, his father. The price paid for holding Gondor's line at whatever cost.
Éomer must have sensed Faramir's discomfort, for he said, "But that is not the only reason I searched you out."
Faramir wrenched himself away from unpleasant memories, tilted his head curiously. "Oh?"
"I wished," Éomer said, his tone strangely soft despite the natural gravel of his voice, "to talk to you."
The emphasis on the you was clear. And maybe Faramir was imagining meaning where there was none, but he thought he saw a light flush staining Éomer's cheeks. "And why would you wish to talk to me?"
"I saw you at the Gate today," Éomer said, "with your hair glittering in the sun. You looked like a figure out of some old song. I confess I scarcely remember you that first rush as we rode out, but when I saw you at the Gate—I knew I wished to meet you."
In spite of himself, Faramir was flattered. "Now you have met me, then. I hope I pass muster."
"On the contrary, I find you surpass all my expectations."
Faramir flushed. He was suddenly aware of how close Éomer stood to him, their bodies almost flush and Éomer looking down at Faramir from a height with those sky-blue intense eyes. "Is that so? What will you do about it?"
The silence stretched between them for a moment, stretched taut like a bow-string, not unpleasant but fragile and easily snapped.
Then Éomer laughed, dispelling the tension. “If I can presume on your time, I had never been to the city of Minas Tirith before riding out to battle, and I wish to see what it holds. And your company would be welcome, if you could spare the time.”
“I can indeed,” Faramir rushed to assure him. He did not know whether his statement was true—the King had not yet spoken to him about his duties—but seeing the smile that lit up Éomer’s face, he decided he would make time even if it meant defying the King himself.
—
Minas Tirith had streets filled with the stately homes of nobles and knights, tree lined avenues filled with buildings fashioned from the finest stone. But many of the houses were boarded shut, oaken windows shuttered and great doors barred (for many of the nobles had fled the city early or been slaughtered on the field, Captains leading the charge), and others bore obvious signs of bereavement. Walking with Éomer, Faramir could feel the gloom descend as visible signs of the death and destruction wrought by Sauron became ever more numerous.
The lower levels, with the houses of the merchants and the craftsmen, were similar, though there were more signs of life and bustle as structures torn down almost to rubble were rebuilt. The middle rings that were home to the poor of the city were more lively, at least. The houses were intact, for the most part, though there was some damage still, and unlike those more well-off the common folk returned to the city almost immediately once it was safe to do so. Still, although many-coloured flags waved from windows in celebration of their victory and children ran down cobbled streets shrieking with laughter, the stench of grief and loss still pervaded the air, in the widow’s weeds many women wore as they went about their business, in the too-clean cobblestones still smelling faintly of blood and fire, in the way the running children did not run too far from their houses. And the guard around the two of them, men in armour and spears, did not help. To be frank, it made Faramir feel slightly ridiculous.
A sidelong glance at Éomer confirmed what Faramir already felt: this was not the light-hearted enjoyment that Éomer had sought. Nor was it the kind of afternoon Faramir had hoped to spend.
But, Faramir realized with a flash of inspiration, that the market had been re-opened when the King returned to Minas Tirith. “I have somewhere else to show you, if you do not mind.”
Éomer looked at him with what could only be termed relief. “I would be most happy to follow you wherever you go.”
The words did not mean anything, Faramir told himself, beyond what was obvious. They did not. Still, he could not help smiling to himself as he attempted to convince their guard to let them venture on alone. (A difficult task, but Faramir eventually succeeded by bringing to bear the full weight of his and Éomer’s combined ranks. He banished the guilt at the action; he would make it up to whoever the poor captain on shift now was later.)
The marketplace had been Faramir’s favourite place to run to when he sneaked off from his lessons as a child. It was nowhere near as crowded or vast as it had been during his childhood, but it was still the bustle of sights and sounds and smells he remembered so fondly.
“This,” Faramir said proudly to Éomer, as they stood at the crest of the street that sloped sharply downwards into the square, gesturing with a perhaps too-expansive arm, “is the marketplace of Minas Tirith.”
It spilled out of the wide square surrounded by slim trees onto the shaded streets that lead every-which-way into the city. Vendors shouted out their wares, their voices mingling into a rousing cacophony. Donkeys and ponies trudged through the streets, dragged by their owners and bearing heavy loads, or wandering around aimlessly until they were chased away from a stall where they stopped to graze at some hapless trader’s goods. Canvases stretched across wooden poles functioning as makeshift stalls, though some traders had given up on any kind of shade from the harsh midday sun altogether and displayed their wares on simple mats on the ground. Small children weaved in and out of the mass of people thronging down through the alleyways created by the rows of stalls.
“Shall we go down?” Faramir asked.
Éomer laughed, a deep laugh straight from his stomach, and took Faramir’s hand. Because of the swirling mass of humanity below, Faramir told himself, not for any other reason besides that.
Faramir had worried privately, on the way, that Éomer would be overwhelmed by the chaos of the market
But he found his worries unfounded.
Éomer walked with a steady pace, his height and girth and the colouring and hair which marked him of the Rohirrim shielding him from the surging unison of the movements of the crowd. He paused at stalls to eye a particular pendant or fruit or scroll, but his eye was discerning. A few juicy plums ripe and plump even out of season, a necklace of pearl from Dol Amroth (for Éowyn, the explanation was given), a parchment lovingly painted with a miniature of Elendil’s first step onto Middle-earth—Faramir could find no fault with the discernment of his eye.
He himself bought a few quills made from feathers of exotic birds, but nothing else, keeping his hand firmly in Éomer’s instead. (And Éomer’s grip was firm and confident even as he bartered and haggled over a length of midnight-blue silk.)
“If I may, Faramir, what do you think of this?” Éomer held up a cloak-pin. It was crafted in the shape of a horse, silver and stone lovingly bent into shape to curve into a windswept mane and galloping hooves.
“It is beautiful,” Faramir murmured, for it was. The craftsmanship was exquisite, and the detailing of the horse caught the sun just so and made it appear as if the creature was set aflame.
“My son made that himself, my lord,” the owner of the stall, an old woman in a bright yellow shawl, said. “Gave it to his wife as a token when she was at the Houses of Healing and he was posted at Osgiliath. They both made it out alive, thank the Valar, and my son told me to sell the pin only to a worthy buyer.”
“And am I to be a worthy buyer, then?”
“If you intend it as a gift,” the woman said, “you will be.”
“And I do. If you name your price—”
The woman did, and after momentary haggling Éomer gave her almost double the price she named in coin. (As he had at all the stalls he stopped at, Faramir noticed, but did not say anything.) Then he turned to Faramir, the pin still cupped in his palm. “Will you accept this token from me?”
Faramir’s skin prickled, as if a thousand butterfly wings suddenly brushed over it. “I cannot—”
“Do not refuse.” Éomer’s hands were at Faramir’s shoulder. He could not form words even if he wanted to as he watched Éomer unpin his pin (a black thing made for functionality and not beauty) and replace it with the silver horse. He trembled, holding still with effort, as Éomer carefully pinned the horse through the cloth of his tunic and cloak. It seemed as if every inch of his body could feel Éomer’s hands move, though skin did not touch skin. “There. And,” he smiled a half-smile, his eyes bright, “I wish you safety and protection.”
“Thank you,” Faramir said.
Éomer took Faramir’s hand and pressed on it a swift, gentle kiss that yet left what felt like a burning imprint behind. “My gift, to thank you for this day.”
—
The war was won and the Ring destroyed, and yet Sauron still extended his long reach over Gondor and her people.
Faramir frowned again at the ledger and the maps. Sauron’s hordes had destroyed too many fields and farms, had sacked stores set aside by tithe and meant to last into the next years. Food would become a problem soon. The King had asked him to look into it and look into it he had, and now his mind spun with figures and calculations.
So much so, in fact, that he almost did not hear the knock, and had to hastily clutch at his inkpot before it spilled over onto his papers.
“Come in,” he called, once he calmed his raising heart.
The blond head that came through the door was familiar, and Faramir could not help but feel his heart jump to his throat as he rose to greet his guest. “Éomer.”
Éomer frowned at Faramir’s papers. “You are busy. I did not mean to interrupt your work—”
“You did not,” Faramir said firmly. “You are no interruption at all.” Although in truth his work was urgent, he could still spare time to entertain Éomer. He would find the time to entertain Éomer, somehow.
But Éomer was peering more closely at Faramir’s papers, now, at the lines of figures Faramir had been struggling to subdue before Éomer had appeared. “Did Sauron’s forces truly do this much damage?”
Faramir sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. “Even if those numbers are wrong, by some miracle, we still face a shortage of food. Many will go hungry in the coming months and deep into winter.”
Éomer said hesitantly, “Rohan has provisions. We would gladly lend you as much as we could, if needed.”
“If needed,” Faramir agreed. “And yet that necessity is something I—” He cut himself off, pinched the bridge of his nose to ward off the headache he felt throbbing at his temples. “I apologize. I am truly not myself today.”
But Éomer shook his head. “It is I who should apologize, for interrupting your work. It is only—I bought you a gift.” He placed something on the desk behind Faramir. “And now I shall take my leave.”
Faramir opened his mouth to protest, but the gentle kiss goodbye (cool, dry lips that sent sparks of lightning through Faramir’s body) on his forehead silenced him, and he watched the door swing shut behind Éomer’s broad back in silence.
He turned, slowly, to his desk, to see what had been laid on it.
A yellow many-petaled flower.
A single yellow flower, in a pattered jar that Éomer must have commissioned from the glassblower’s guild, for a single star shone bright and caught the light behind a horse galloping across a great grass see, the blades carved so that they appeared to be catching the wind.
Faramir cupped the jar in his palm, held the flower to his nose. Not as sweet as the roses of Imloth Melui he had smelled when he rode down to Dol Amroth as a child, but the sharper, earthy scent, Faramir decided, almost eclipsed all the roses in the world.
—
They saddled their horses in the pre-dawn gloom.
Faramir had become used to tending to his own mount, but he had thought the King of Rohan would have attendants.
“Firefoot was given to me by my uncle as a colt, when I first entered his service as a boy of sixteen. I tamed him and saddled him myself, and he will tolerate the hand of few others.” Firefoot nudged Éomer as he spoke, and Éomer reached out to caress his neck.
“I have never understood that bond,” Faramir confessed as they led their horses through the stable and out into the wide yard to mount them. “I have never had a horse of my own, in the true sense of the world, nor any animal really. Boromir and I were always moving from one post to another at the order of my father.” The pain is swift and fresh still, when he speaks or thinks of his family now dead, a spear lancing at his heart.
Éomer knew well of grief, and did not speak on the glitter of Faramir’s eyes that he knew must be visible even from where he was now mounted on his borrowed horse and an armsbreadth at least away from Éomer. “In the Riddermark, a horse is the traditional wedding gift for those who do not already have one. Perhaps you should marry one of us.”
Faramir laughed, nudging his horse forward with his heel. “If any of the Rohirrim would have me, you mean.” If you would have me, Faramir does not think. It is far too soon to think of such things.
“There are many among us who would gladly have you,” Éomer said, and there was a note to his voice which made Faramir shiver. It was not an unpleasant feeling.
Still, he urged his horse forward into a faster trot. They had many miles to cover, for under the guise of a pleasure-trip he also wished to survey the remaining farmlands and Éomer doubtless had errands of his own. He had, after all, been the one to suggest this journey.
So they rode long and hard, pausing only briefly for conversation, and Faramir noted with pleasure how flowers and fruits were thriving again after the blight that Sauron’s armies had spread before them throughout the land.
“We may yet not starve,” he told Éomer lightheartedly once they dismounted to take their midday meal.
“Gondor may not starve,” Éomer returned teasingly, “but I may if we do not make haste to eat.”
They tore into the simple slices of bread and cheese and cured meat with joy. Faramir the remembered field-rations and stringy game he had lived off in Ithilien as a Ranger, and was glad for the cooks of the King’s kitchen.
When Faramir voiced this thought aloud, Éomer concurred. “Good food and pleasant company are the fruits of victory, I suppose.”
“Do you imply that Orcs make less than perfect friends?” Faramir asked mildly.
It was a not a very witty repartee, Faramir thought, but Éomer’s booming laughter rang across the plain, and Faramir could not help but join him in his mirth.
—
The tower that was the pinnacle of the archives was not quite the highest point in the city, but it was high enough that its ramparts provided an unobstructed view of Minas Tirith and beyond it of the fields of Pelennor almost to the Anduin.
“This is beautiful,” Éomer said. His voice was quiet, fading almost into a whisper as he spoke. “I never truly—this is beautiful.”
“Gondor,” Faramir murmured. “As she is. As she would look, were she not tainted by war.” For from this high up, they could not see the wounds on the earth and the city that Sauron’s forces wrought. All they could see was land, stretching out around them in green and brown and red and flashes of blue sparkling under the evening.
Then, because he was curious, “This must be different from Rohan, though.”
Éomer inclined his head, “Rohan is not as Gondor was. Our mountains are steep, and there are many hills leading up to them. Our city is not carved into the mountain itself as yours is.”
“But if you saw Rohan from a place such as this, I imagine—” And he had imagined Rohan. He could not pretend his curiosity was merely academic; he had imagined being in Rohan among its people. Going to Rohan with its King.
“A great grass sea,” Éomer said. “Ours is a country of plains, and you would see the green grass dancing. And perhaps the golden halls of Meduseld catching the sunlight just so, until they gleamed even from far off.”
Faramir could hear the longing in his voice. Éomer had been away so long from his home, and his sojourns in Ithilien had taught Faramir something of the deep longing for home that sometimes gripped the heart. “You will go back there soon.” It is not a question.
“I will. But,” Éomer’s voice was suddenly soft, almost uncertain, “if you wish to see Rohan in truth, your company for the journey would be welcome.”
The words were even, but there was a hint of something more behind them, the culmination of their days of dancing courtship. “I would,” Faramir cleared his thought, hoping the way his voice broke had not be heard, “I would be honoured.”
The wind was in Éomer’s unbound hair, tousling it and fanning it around his head so that it looked as if he were dancing. His eyes glittered as he stared out at the lands of Gondor, and his lips, bitten and chapped, were parted to show a flash of pink; his tongue. His cheeks dimpled as he smiled.
He is beautiful, Faramir thought. And, I could spend all my life with him.
And so he reached across the space between them, and on the ramparts of the tower, he kissed Éomer.