There were a group of men, strangers, travellers resting their mounts, gathered around the cider press, watching the last of the pale liquid from this crushing dribble down the sides of the press and along the wooden troughs into the barrel. His sleeves rolled above the elbow, Boromir wiped the sweat from his forehead with the back of one sticky hand and nodded to the small dark-eyed boy with the flat paddle, standing on a stool by the barrel.
“Go on lad, skim it off.”
The child grasped the heavy paddle with both hands and carefully swept it across the surface of the juice, gathering the scum of peel and froth and straining to lift the sticky mess away. As he raised the paddle it tipped slightly and a mess of skimmings slid onto the booted feet of the man standing closest, who yelped in anger and swung around to cuff the child.
That blow was blocked with an iron grasp and a quiet order to the boy to ‘go indoors to your Nan, child.’ The boy scrambled off his stool and slipped away through the crowd at the back of the mill. Boromir relaxed his grip on the man’s wrist and smoothed the crumpled velvet of his sleeve.
“Your pardon master,” he said mildly, eyes lowered, “an accident can happen anywhere.” He bent down, taking a rough cloth from his belt. “Let me see to your boots, although such fine leather won’t take much harm from a few apple peelings.”
The fist to the side of his head took him to his knees, where he gasped at the whip that landed across his shoulders, the spurred heel that jabbed into his side. “You should teach the whelp manners, miller, and not to lay hands on his betters.”
The man’s breath was sweet with liquor that couldn’t disguise the heavy stench of rotting teeth. Boromir was concentrating hard on breathing quietly, trying to still the bile rising in his throat. His attacker was wearing a heavy ring over his glove and Boromir began counting the spots of blood dripping onto the cobbled floor. He’d not bring attention to himself for such as this and summoned up a low whine of contrition. “Oh sir have pity, your lordship’s mercy is…”
A call from a groom, a bustle of horses, loud voices and a swirl of booted and cloaked figures and he knelt alone on the cobbles. A small figure flew from the shadows then and wrapped its arms around him, “Adar! I saw him…” Boromir raised drowned green eyes to the child’s anxious gaze. The boy laid cool fingers against the cut near his temple and he was about to reassure the lad, when the hooves of a single horse sidled quietly into view.
It was grey, fine-boned, unshod like all Elven beasts. Arin loosened his grasp, drawn to the horse and its caped rider and Boromir held his breath. “Tell your father,” came the calm voice, “that accidents may indeed occur at any time. This is for his trouble.” He heard a soft clopping sound as the grey wheeled and jogged down the lane out of sight and Boromir finally looked up at his son who was gazing after the rider, his mouth agape.
“Adar, was that an elf?” The boy’s tone was awed, his wide eyes swept Boromir’s face, who nodded. “I wish I could have seen him for longer.” The child returned to the man, kneeling in the yard. “He gave me these” and he handed Boromir three gold coins.
Boromir scooped the boy into his arms and stood, stiffly. By the open door of the dwelling place, an elderly woman had appeared in a cloud of good smells, wiping her hands on her apron. “Arin? Arin, come and eat child – and you too Master. I’ll not have good food spoil a-waiting on you.” She eyed Boromir shrewdly, as he let the boy down and ducked his head to enter the kitchen, saying “I’ll settle the child and fetch hot water and salt.”
“Never heed, Nan, I can carry for myself.”
He could hear Arin’s excited account of what an ‘actual elf really looked like,’ as he poured hot water into the basin in the scullery and added a measure of salt to cleanse the wound, but his hands shook pitifully as he took up the cloth and his gaze never left the coins laid on the wooden shelf beside the salt crock. They were the first he’d seen struck for the new reign and his fingers drifted up to ghost over the raised outline of the high-winged crown, the long bearded face. Abruptly he turned them over to the image of the tree and the stars and for a moment such grief and loneliness welled-up in the man that silent tears ruffled the surface of the water in the basin.
When the boy had been sent to bed, the man and the old woman sat at either side of the modest fire. Nan leant forward and poked the glowing remnants of a log, which sent out a small shower of sparks, rousing Boromir who had been lost in thought, to meet her gaze. She tapped the bowl of her long pipe against the edge of the brazier and began to clean it with a slip of wood.
“I suppose,” she said tartly, “you’ll be moving on shortly, Master?” The expression in the man’s eyes was unreadable and he seemed unwilling to talk. She fetched a worn leather pouch from under her apron and began to re-fill the pipe, speaking low but clear, as she tamped down the weed.
“When I was a young woman, I wanted a bit more adventure than home offered me and took service with a merchant family in Harlond. It was a fine port then, squares with white fountains in the middle, markets and gardens down to the harbour, and music seemed to tumble out of every window…” she paused, and a look of remembrance and wonder came over her face, “…and yet you could hear every song clearly. I stayed three years in that place before Rollin came to claim me and many times I saw folk who came down from Minas Tirith to take ship. One lady I remember, clear as day, perhaps not strong but noble, a gentle soul. She had a small boy with red-gold hair by the hand and he had a wooden boat with white sails in the other. He would not set the boat in the fountain, but cried that it must go to the sea. The lady and her women tried to explain that the boat would be lost if set in the harbour, but Boromir of Gondor would have none of it – there was such pride of his people in him that he scorned to set a ship with the tree and stars on its sails, tame into a fountain. That was near forty years ago and great and terrible things have happened since – but I never thought to see that boy let a lesser man grind his face in the dust.”
Nan watched the man closely. He was sat with the scarred, ruin’d, side of his face in darkness, but the part lit by the fire was still grave and fair, and this time he did not hide the slow tears.
“So it seems to me,” she continued, “that so heavy a burden as could make that man kneel, could drive him from place to place, no rest nor solace…but the lad needs rest, a place to call home. You and the boy have cheered this hearth with your coming and the millstone begins to sing again. There is a place for you here.”
Boromir’s mouth twisted silently as though he struggled with speech and Nan waited a long moment for the answer, “I thank you.”
She nodded in satisfaction, adding “But you must not stay – not too long. The years will fly and the boy needs an education better than he can get here, my lord.”
He shifted uneasily at her formality. “That man died, Nan, that noble man is gone. Gondor remembered him with more pomp than his carcass deserved. I have no more to offer Arin than I can earn with my hands or beg with a broken body, in places where we may be private folk.”
“And what would you have him be? a miller? Is that why you make his speech gentle, teach him Elvish words and tell him tales out of history?”
His reply was soft, “I thought, perhaps, a soldier…”
“…for Gondor?”
“…for Gondor.”
……………………………………………………………………………….
Path 1
Quiet weeks passed for Boromir to finish the cider pressing and get back to the day-to-day work on grain. The fresh cut on his head became no more than a livid mark, the outward hurts had faded to a dull ache when he left the mill to deliver some oatmeal to a neighbour who had no cart.
As he neared the yard on his return he could hear Arin’s excited chatter and his breath caught in his throat as he came upon the boy, perched on the back of the grey Elven horse, being led around the yard by the wood-elf who met his eyes, inclined his head in greeting, and turned back to Arin to answer some breathless question that made the boy’s eyes shine.
A second horse, a tall, raw-boned black stood quiet, tied in the shade near the trough and Boromir’s heart began a slow, painful slam in his chest as he backed the pony up to unhitch the little cart beside the mill. His fingers fumbled at the buckles of the breechings as he untacked and lifted the harness from the pony, which wandered off to drink at the trough.
He was in the cool dark of the lean-to shed that served as a stable, laying the tack on a bench to be cleaned later, when a long shadow entered the sunlit doorway. The tall man that followed hesitated at the jamb, his voice hoarse.
“Boromir…friend…will you not see me? My eyes can scarce believe what my heart tells me…dear friend…I would hug the breath out of you just to know that you are real and stood before me… we thought you lost and we grieved.”
Boromir, stared unseeing at the jumble of harness, his fingers trying to force an awkward buckle and his dry throat ached on the stumbling words “Sire, near seven years have passed…”
Aragorn started forward, crying out, “You cannot have believed your life was so soon dismissed…Boromir the Fair was not forgotten.”
Boromir’s head jerked around at that and he presented Aragorn with the torn remnants of a once handsome countenance. By some good fortune his left eye was unscathed, but the lid above, the forehead and cheek below were gouged with two deep runnels of dark, twisted scar tissue spilling down to the jawline, as though a great beast had clawed him.
The man he faced had aged. There was more silver mixing with the black hair at the temples and care had worn deeper lines around his eyes, but his beauty still shone out for Boromir, who saw that there was no pity in the other’s eyes, but only care and perhaps a kind of love. Then Aragorn stepped through the doorway towards the workbench, so that Boromir caught the warm scent of him, and he was light-headed, fearing that Aragorn would embrace him, but the King, picking up the discarded bridle, began to quietly unbuckle the horsebit.
Boromir returned to dismantling the harness and for a few moments the men worked side-by-side, each coming to know the weight of the other’s presence again. As he handed Boromir the reins Aragorn spoke softly, his words cutting through the dream in which the other stood amazed.
“You have a fine son, but I sorrow for your loss – his mother - there have been too many losses. I have a son now, Eldarion. He can nearly crawl, “he turned to gaze on the boy in the yard who was struggling to sit upright on his mount. “You will see him…” Aragorn set the bridle down abruptly on the bench and there was just a shading of command to the voice, masking the uncertainty in his plea, “Boromir, tell me that you will come to see him and Arwen – you will come home.”
As he turned away to hang up some harness, with his free hand Boromir’s fingers traced the faint outline of the long scar across his stomach through the rough linen and even as the fear rose in his throat, answered “Aye, my lord. We will come home.”
tbc………………………………………………………………………………
Path 2
He shifted uneasily at her formality. “That man died, Nan, that noble man is gone. Gondor remembered him with more pomp than his carcass deserved. I have no more to offer Arin than I can earn with my hands or beg with a broken body, in places where we may be private folk.”
“And what would you have him be? a miller? Is that why you make his speech gentle, teach him Elvish words and tell him tales out of history?”
His reply was soft, “I thought, perhaps, a soldier…”
“…for Gondor?”
“…for Gondor.”
The fire was banked for the night and the dogs let loose in the yard, when the pounding came at the gates – a cacophony of barking, cries of “Open up!” “Open for the King!”
Nan’s hands shook as she lit candles and she caught at Boromir’s sleeve when he passed with the keys.
“Hide boy! There’s Rollin’s secret place beneath the millstone. I’ll say you left…took the gold and went…”
Boromir lifted her hand away gently. “No boy now, Nan. I ventured too close and brought this reckoning upon us…all may be well.”
As he opened the gates, a troop of horse swept out of the darkness, torches flaring golden light around the rider who sat his mount in full regalia, so still that Boromir believed that the coins had come to life.
He moved forward into the light and saw the momentary shock of recognition in the King’s face. Then some movement in the corner of his eye made Boromir turn to see the elf carrying Arin wrapped in a blanket out of the house, Nan clutching at his cloak, towed along in his wake as he approached Elessar and handed the sleeping form up to be settled in front of his saddlebow. Boromir lunged forward with a soft cry, catching at the King’s rein, who leant down to say curtly, “I came for my son.”
As Elessar wheeled his horse around, the elf moved behind Boromir and wrapped his arms tight around the man who struggled vainly to free himself, whilst Nan struck out left and right at the soldiers who held her, cursing them and their deeds with vicious clarity in a hoarse whisper, so that the child might not awaken and be frightened.
Finally, as the riders moved off, Boromir was forcibly laid on the ground, his hands crossed over his chest and the cold, beautiful face filled his anguished gaze, saying “There is your place, Boromir of Gondor. Be at peace.” But as the sounds of the company receded, there was no peace for the man who howled his pain into the darkness, lying on the dusty ground.
Summary: Boromir returns, seven years late and a scarred man.
Rated: NC-17
Categories: LOTR FPS Pairing: Aragorn/Boromir
Warnings: NoneChallenges:
Series: NoneChapters: 6 Completed: Yes
Word count: 30040 Read: 6479
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."