The War of the Ring (59 page)

'... And if words spoken of old come true, he is not doomed to fall before warrior or wise [> men of war or wisdom]; but in the hour of his victory to be overthrown by one who has never slain a man [> by one who has slain no living thing]....'

In RK this becomes: 'not by the hand of man shall he fall, and hidden from the Wise is the doom that awaits him' (cf. RK p. 116). At the end of this conversation Denethor says: 'Some have unjustly accused you, Mithrandir, of delighting to bear ill news'; before 'unjustly' my father pencilled 'no doubt', but afterwards removed both qualifications.

For all the story of the sortie for the rescue of Faramir and the out-companies and the mounting of the siege there is preliminary drafting, in which almost all features of the final narrative were already present.(17) In the fair copy there is a remarkable addition pencilled in to the description of the Nazgul circling over the City on the first day of the siege:

The Nazgul came once more, slaves of the Nine Rings, and to each, since now they were utterly subject to his will, their Lord had given again that ring of power that he had used of old.

This survived into the first typescript, where it was afterwards replaced by the words in RK (p. 97): The Nazgul came again, and as keir Dark Lord now grew and put forth his strength, so their voices, which uttered only his will and his malice, were filled with evil and horror.'

In initial drafting for the last part of the chapter the central story of Denethor's madness can be seen emerging as my father wrote (torren-tially, with scarcely-formed letters).

And Faramir lay in his chamber wandering in fever, dying as it was said, while his father sat beside him and heeded little the ending of the defence. It seemed to Pippin, who often watched by his side or at the door, that at last something had snapped in the proud will of Denethor: whether grief at the harsh words he spoke before Faramir rode out,(18) or the bitter thought that whatever now should happen in the war, his line too was ending, and even the House of the Stewards would fail, and a lesser house rule the last remnant of the kings of men.

So it was that without word spoken or any commission from the Lord, Gandalf took command of the defence. Wherever he came men's hearts were lifted and the winged shadows passed from memory. Tirelessly he went from Citadel to the Gate, from north to south about the wall, and yet - when he had gone the shadow seemed to close on men again, and vain it seemed to resist, to wait there for cold sword or cruel hunger [sic].

And so they passed out of a dim day of fear to the shadow of desperate night. Fire now raged in the lowest circle of the City.

The garrison on the walls was well nigh cut off, those that indeed had not already fled. And then in the middle night the assault was loosed.

[Messengers came to the high tower and Denethor looked at them. 'The [?outer] circle is burning, lord,' they said, 'men are flying from the walls.' 'Why?' said Denethor. 'It is well to burn soon than late. I will go now to my own pyre. Farewell, Peregrin son of Paladin, your service has been short. I release you from it, unless you would still use your sword in defence of what is lost.

Go now if you will to him that brought you here, to your death.'

He rose and bidding men take up Faramir's bed and follow him left the White Tower and paced slowly, pausing only for a moment at the ... tree, passed out of the Citadel, and going laid himself in the house of tombs under the shadow of Mindolluin with Pippin by his side.]

This passage that I have enclosed in square brackets was an addition to the manuscript, but it can be seen clearly from the manuscript that my father inserted it while he was actually writing the description of the black horseman and the destruction of the Gate. A later note scribbled against the passage reads: 'Pippin follows the cortege until it enters the tombs and then flies down in search of Gandalf. Meets Berithil and together they go through the city. Pippin arrives in time to see Gandalf and the Sorcerer King.'

The vanguard passed over narrow ways between the trenches and suffered loss where they bunched, but too few archers left on the walls. [?Front of war] not in the north or south, but a great weight came to the gate. The ground was choked with bodies but still they came on.

There Gandalf stood. And then over the hill in the flare of the fire a great Black Horseman came. For a moment he ... halted menacing, and lifted up a great ... sword red to the hilt. Fear fell on all ....... Then great rams went on before, but the steel only shook and boomed. The Black Captain ..... lifted again his hand crying in a dreadful voice. In some forgotten tongue he spoke crying aloud words of power and terror. Thrice the rams boomed. Thrice he cried, and then suddenly the gate as if stricken by some blast burst [?asunder], and a great flash as of lightning, burst and fell, and in rode the Lord of the Nazgul. But there waiting still before the gate sat Gandalf, and Shadowfax alone among the free horses of the earth did not [?quailj but stood rooted as an image of grey marble.

'You cannot pass,' said Gandalf. 'Go back to the black abyss prepared for you, and fall into nothingness that shall come upon your Master.'

The Black Rider [?lay for laid] back his hood and .....

crown that sat upon no visible head save only for the light of his pale eyes.(19) A deadly laughter [?rang] out.

'Old fool,' he said. 'Old fool. Do you not know death when you see it? Die now and curse in vain. This is my hour of victory.' And with that he lifted his great sword. [Added: And then suddenly his hand wavered and fell and it seemed that he shrank.] And [> For) in that very moment away behind in some counrtyard of the city a cock crowed. Shrill and clear he crowed, recking nothing of wizardry or war, welcoming only the morning that far above the shadows of death was now coming once again.

And as if in answer there came from far away another note.

Horns, horns, horns, great horns of the north wildly blowing.

The riders of Rohan had come at last.

From short passages of further drafting, either separate or pencilled on the fair copy manuscript itself and then overwritten, the final form of the story was largely reached, and there is nothing to notice in this development. But as the fair copy was left to stand there remained a differences from RK. The account of Pippin's watching beside Denethor and Faramir remained essentially as it was in the initial draft p. 335), where Denethor himself does not speak, and the cause of his devastation is expressed as a surmise of Pippin's: 'Grief maybe had wrought it: grief at the harsh words he spoke when Faramir returned

[> remorse for the harsh words he spoke that sent Faramir out into needless peril],(20) and the bitter thought that, whatever might now betide in war, woe or victory beyond all hope, his line too was ending ...'

The description of the journey of the bearers of Faramir, with Denethor and Pippin, after they had passed through the gate of the Citadel, begins thus (cf. RK pp. 99-100):

Turning westward they came at last to a dark door, used only by the Lord of the City, for it opened on a winding way that descended by many curves down to the narrow land under the shadow of Mindolluin's precipice where stood the tombs of the Kings and their Stewards.

But from this point the text reaches effectively the form in RK in the description of the descent to Rath Dinen, the Silent Street.(21) The passage just cited reappears in the first typescript of the chapter, with the addition that the door was 'in the rearward wall of the sixth circle'; but the final text was entered on the typescript in a rider, and here the name of the door appears: 'Fenn Fornen, for it was kept ever shut save at times of funeral'.(22)

Pippin's encounter with Berithil as he fled from the horrifying scene in Rath Dinen begins differently from its form in RK (p. 101):

'Whither do you run, Master Peregrin?' he said.

'To find Mithrandir,' answered Pippin.

'Then have you left the service of the Lord so soon? We hold that it is the duty of those who wear the black and silver to remain in the Citadel of Gondor whatever else may chance, until death release them.'(23)

'Or the Lord,' said Pippin.

'Then he sends you on some errand that I should not hinder. ³

But tell me, if you may, what goes forward? ...'

The text then continues as in RK; but Pippin was still permitted at this fateful moment a more Shire-like turn of phrase: 'Something is wrong with him', he says of Denethor (where in RK he says 'He is fey and dangerous'), and he tells Berithil: 'Don't bother about "orders" and all that!'

Lastly, it is worth remarking that the importance of the Prince of Dol Amroth was enlarged as the chapter evolved. In the draft C Pippin did not name him among the 'great persons' present at the council held before Faramir's return from Henneth Annun (p. 326), and this remains the case in the fair copy D. The Prince's intervention in the deliberations before Faramir went to Osgiliath is absent in the first version of D (p. 333): it enters with the revision (where he is called

'Dol Amroth'). His bringing of Faramir to the White Tower was never added to D (note 17). And in drafting for the latter part of D he is not mentioned as accompanying Gandalf in his tireless permabulation of the City (p. 335) - the passage in which he is introduced here (RK

p. 98), with the reference to there being 'Elvish blood in the veins of that folk, for the people of Nimrodel dwelt once in that land long ago', was in fact written into the D manuscript as an afterthought soon after my father had passed this point. At this stage the name Imrahil had still not emerged (see pp. 287, 289).

NOTES.

1. The account of Pippin's livery is in every point as described in RK, save only that the silver star on the circlet of his helm is not mentioned.

2. Berethil is clearly written so, Berithil in the first typescript of

'Minas Tirith', p. 288; after further occurrences of Berethil, however, Berithil reappears.

3. Ramas Coren: earlier name of the Wall about the Pelennor (p.

288).

4. I have inverted the order of the last two paragraphs of this outline.

5. On this and subsequent references to days and times see the Note on Chronology below.

6. 75 leagues from Henneth Annun to Minas Tirith: 25 leagues in RK. The distance on my father's large map of Rohan, Gondor and Mordor which I redrew in The Return of the King is about 23 leagues. The figure 75 in the present text is however perfectly clear, although the following text D, directly based here on the present draft, has 25. On the First Map the distance can be very roughly computed to something in the region of 75 miles, and I suppose that my father, working very fast, simply wrote 'leagues'

for 'miles'.

7. The illegible word seems to begin with d and might be duty, but the writing is so unclear that it might be dealings, or some other word. In the following text, where Denethor still says that he knows 'the answer to the riddling words', the sentence is replaced by 'Poor Boromir! ' > 'Alas for Boromir!'

8. The word I have given as '[?either]' is in fact hard to interpret in any other way. Possibly the sentence was left unfinished. The following text has the reading of RK (p. 87), 'save by a victory so final that what then befell would not trouble us, the dead

[> being dead].'

9. Pippin says of Frodo: 'Just think, he was alive at least up to this time yesterday, and not so far away across the River!' I do not know why Pippin should say 'at least up to this rime yesterday', since Faramir had said that he had parted with Frodo and Sam

'yestermorn'. The following text has: 'he was alive and talking to Faramir only yesterday'. - In Gandalf's reckoning of the time he says: 'Let me see, he would discover some four days ago that we had thrown down Saruman - and had the Stone,' where RK has

'five'. See the Note on Chronology below.

10. The following text has: 'So I told Aragorn, on the day when we met again in Fangorn and rode down to Rohan.' The reference is to The White Rider, TT p. 100: For imagining war he has let loose war, believing that he has no time to waste ... So the forces that he has long been preparing he is now setting in motion, sooner than he intended.'

11. Cf. the original outline on p. 326: 'Pippin ... hears Faramir accept orders to go to Osgiliath.'

12. In RK (p. 91) Gandalf does not leave the City until news comes of Faramir's retreat to the wall of the Pelennor.

13. The square brackets are in the original.

14. Here the passage in ink breaks off; the sentence would have continued with the sortie from the Gate.

15. I note here a few details. All the references to date remain as in the draft. The distance from Henneth Annun to Minas Tirith becomes 25 leagues (see note 6). Peregrin's friend is Berithil (see note 2; Beregond only entered at a late stage). The island in Anduin receives momentarily the name Cairros, changed immediately to Andros (and later to Cair Andros).