The old man who had begun the tale was dozing now, the light dimmed in his eye even as the fire died down and the embers settled in a blanket of white ash. He was slumped in his seat, but his tale, once begun, was unreeling across the faces of the company, like a patch of sunlight chasing across a dark hillside. This was a favourite tale, of love regained after many adventures and each had added their mite. Now there was only the stranger left in the taproom who had not offered up some stirring account to leave all amazed that the young lovers had breath left to declare themselves after their adventures.
One impatient soul had drawn breath to demand that the stranger tell his tale and be quick about it, for the fire was dying and folk must be abed, but he had been hushed by those who saw past the worn coat and threadbare gear to a soldier – one who had known better days, perhaps a fire of his own lighting with a wife and young ones thought some, shaking their heads at the latter days that had shattered too many lives.
Now, when he cleared his throat and began to speak it was as though the chords were stiff from lack of use and his first words were slow, laboured – but they listened and gradually the tap fell silent as the hunched figure told the last of the story in his own way, fingers wrapped tight about the empty mug.
He would give the man a meal on the strength of this, thought the landlord, shushing an unwary maid who clattered in from the kitchen. The soldier was telling how the lovers met at last in a beautiful wood, beneath trees thick with golden leaves and walked barefoot on soft grass until they came to a fountain, clear and flowing. He did not look a man prone to fancy, but as he described the tiny flowers that starred the green, men imagined a sweet smell began to creep in their nostrils and as the solder talked of a night bird in the canopy above them, the faintest ripple of a silver-tuned harp hung about the edges of their hearing.
When the soldier told of pain and doubt, of how pride had kept the lovers one from the other, the landlord felt a shiver move across his skin and when, at last, they lay down amidst the flowers to love, and the soldier, come to his end, lifted his gaze from the floor so that all could see the wetness on his scarred cheek, mine host ducked his head and nodded to himself in satisfaction before despatching the maid to the now silent man with a brimming pot and the thanks of the house. When the girl returned, he sent her back into the kitchen to scrape the iron kettle for a last bowl of stew and to hunt up some bread.
The soldier had glanced up as the maid set the mug before him and the landlord thought there was such sadness in the tired eyes as he hoped never to see again. The room was clearing, folk bidding each other a good night, but he gestured for the man to finish his drink.
In the porch, there was a scrabble of nails on the flagged floors as the pot-boy was towed in by the great hound. The landlord had its food ready in the old battered helm. The dog would eat and then be turned loose to sleep all night in the tap as guard.
In the corner of the settle, the soldier was gathering the blanketed form of the child to him as the dog came to sniff them out and he held his hand before the child’s face, so that the hound might scent them both, but not disturb the sleeping boy.
So quiet he sat, meeting the dog’s gaze unblinking that the landlord was reminded of a nobleman he’d once seen, surrounded by hawks and hounds and scurrying servants, planted, silent in the midst of a whirling dance to his tune. Now the landlord whistled up the guard dog that was nosing around the plate of stew the soldier had laid aside on its approach.
“You and the boy can stay here,” he said, gruffly, “there’ll be heat in the ashes and Clem will protect my property.”
The soldier glanced up from the dog and nodded his thanks. As the landlord turned to go a fragment of an old song, his mother’s voice, almost forgot, came to him and he turned to the soldier, saying shyly,
“That tale – was it about the elves?” and when the soldier did not answer immediately, he added, “I’ve heard tell of golden trees.”
“Mallorns…they’re called mallorns.”
For a moment the soldier’s eyes shone and the landlord knew that he spoke of something seen and felt – but the light was fleeting and a shutter closed across his eyes as though he had revealed too much and already regretted it.
“It was a fine tale,” said the landlord.
As he turned to go, he heard the plaintive tones of the child and the soldier’s voice, low in reply, a caress stroking the boy towards sleep, and when he glanced back from the doorway, the man sat staring across the darkening room and mine host wondered if he saw the mallorns still.
…………………………………………………………………………………………..
The next morning, Boromir was in the low wooden shed, dignified with the title of ‘stable’, forking out muck in exchange for their breakfast, when he heard the raised voices coming from the nearby kitchen. As he emerged into the yard, dragging the sack of droppings towards the muck-heap, he could see the boy sat on the edge of the trough, leaning forward, listening with interest to the angry exchange issuing from the open doorway.
Boromir frowned slightly and set his jaw, as he bent into the weight of the sack. The landlord and his goodwife were going at it hammer and tongs and both favoured an earthy turn of phrase. It was nothing he had not heard as a child, haunting the guardroom, but now he was uneasy. This was not the life he wished for Arin and yet he could not see their way ahead.
Just then, the landlord burst out of the doorway, stumbling into the light and followed by a well-aimed ladle, that caught him on the shoulder as he went. The man saw the child watching him and perhaps there was a faint blush to his cheek as he hurried after the boy’s father.
He reached the muck-heap just as Boromir was shaking out the sack and scrubbed a hand roughly over his hair, exclaiming ruefully, “Well, that’s me told, eh soldier?”
Boromir glanced at him and nodded noncommittally. He’d not risk their breakfast on being seen to take sides in this dispute. The landlord shifted from foot to foot.
“You can earn some bread for the road, soldier, if you’ll run an errand for the goodwife.”
Boromir waited. He was not surprised that there was no encouragement to stay longer; he knew that many shrank from the livid scars on his face and this was not a large enough establishment to keep a groom who could stay out of sight. The child was tired of the road, but they must be moving on and food would be welcome.
“We’re short of flour. The mill-wife promised to have it ready before now. You can take the pony. The boy will be safe here. I’ll see him fed – a hot meal.”
Boromir knew that Arin was being held against his return with the precious flour, but he had no fear that the boy would be mistreated and nodded his approval.
The pony was sturdy and stubborn, with a mouth of iron and a will to match. Boromir had considered throwing a leg over it. He was light enough now in truth, but it seemed less trouble to walk beside it as they trudged the few miles to the mill. It was a busy road, better frequented than many they’d taken of late and whilst he ducked his own head towards the pony’s mane when someone glanced in his direction, unobserved he watched with interest the cavalcade of pedlars, merchants and farmers driving beasts that raised a white dust as they went.
This was the ordinary traffic of men that spoke of peace, he thought, and for a moment his heart swelled with pride for a people, so resilient after all that had occurred to beat them down, and for his king, who had battled doubt and yet lived up to the expectations placed on him and who deserved the fame that followed every mention of his name.
Up ahead he could see the way forked. The main road curved to the right over a stone bridge and down the hill. The other path and a short way up a narrow valley lay the bulk of the mill beside a fast-flowing stream.
The mill was stone-built with a yard and a range of low buildings about it, but as he came closer, he could see the evidence of neglect. The high gate was propped open with what looked like a clothes-pole. The top hinge was gone, replaced with a length of rope and there were weeds at the edges of the beaten earth floor. Just now the yard was crowded with a string of beasts hitched to whatever rings could be found, and a knot of men were sitting in the shade, throwing dice and passing a wine-skin from hand to hand.
The door to the mill swung back and an old woman appeared, her apron and skirts white with flour, sleeves rolled to the elbow and a fierce light in her eyes.
“Your meal is ready,” she cried, ”and you will need to fetch it yourselves.” Then she whisked back out of sight into dark of the mill, and the clanking and whirr of the machinery.
Boromir was tying the pony up but when he turned back to the yard, none of the dice players had moved. He walked across to them and as his shadow fell across their outstretched legs they gazed up, slack-jawed when they saw his countenance. Boromir allowed himself to glare down at them with an expression his recruits from long ago would have known and feared.
“The mill-wife is calling, lads,” he said softly and having followed them across the yard, he stood quietly leaning against the door-jamb watching them sweating to lift the filled sacks and carry them to their beasts. When they were done, their leader, keen to regain his authority amongst his fellows, would have argued the price, purely for the sport of baiting the old woman, but the scarred man still watched them and so they left, quietly.
Boromir was fishing out from his jerkin the bill of sale for the flour that the landlord had given him, when a white hand came to rest on his and patted it. “I would know that pony anywhere,” said the old woman, “and Martha should have had her flour this week past, but you’ll have to wait whiles I change the setting of the stones.” Boromir became aware that she seemed to be shrinking before his eyes, the fight knocked out of her and he took her hand to sit her down on the door step.
“Can I fetch you water, mother?” he asked.
She sat for a moment and then smoothed down her apron and said quietly, “No, there’s a bottle of cider cooling in the millrace. We’ll have a mug of that.”
Boromir had hauled up the flagon and poured them both a measure. It was tart and cold and he could feel the life flowing through his veins the better for it.
“My own making,” said the mill-wife smiling, a little colour returned to her cheeks now, “but there’ll be none this year…it’s the end of an old song.”
Then she gathered her skirts about her feet and took Boromir’s proffered hand as he rose to help her up and they went into the dark of the mill.
It was a measure of the old miller, that his new widow should have been able to work the mill at all. Boromir could see that all had been built to make the heavy work as easy as might be, but he went willingly at her beck and call, shifting leavers and hauling up sacks, watching carefully as the grain poured into the chute above and the flour began to sift through below. He saw her rub the flour between her fingertips to test the grade and all the whiles they spoke a little, taking the measure of one another.
He called himself - but she cut him off mid-sentence, saying only, “I see a soldier, and ‘Soldier’ you’ll be and I am ‘Nan’.”
She heard him speak of the boy, Arin, saw the warmth in his green eyes when he spoke of him, saw the worry too and knew that he thought of the coming winter. As the millstones trundled on, her eyes were drawn out the window to the small grove of apple trees where the miller lay, the grass not yet green on his grave. Old man, she said to herself, you have sent me a helpmeet today and the stones are glad.
She packed him off back to the inn with the flour and an invitation to return, for the miller had been ailing a whiles before his death and there was work to be had about the place and when he stepped into the yard the next day, the dark-eyed boy, shy and half-hiding behind him, Nan thought she heard the millstones sing.
-oo0oo-
Summary: How Arin met Nan
Rated: G
Categories: LOTR FPS Pairing: Aragorn/Boromir
Warnings: NoneChallenges:
Series: NoneChapters: 1 Completed: Yes
Word count: 2334 Read: 1013
Published: 29 Jul 2009 Updated: 29 Jul 2009
Story Notes:
DISCLAIMER: "These characters originate with their copyright holders. I borrow them for entertainment, not profit."