The War of the Ring (68 page)

Arise, arise, Riders of Theoden

Fell deeds awake. Forth Eorlingas!

when peril threatened.](2)

Now the Captains return. But Aragorn sets his pavilion in the field before the gate and will not enter without permission and sends in word begging leave to enter and speak with the Steward. They tell him that the Steward is dead by his own hand and the Lord Faramir sick, to death. Then he lays aside all the badges of Elendil, and enters as a plain man. Aragorn meets Pippin and Gandalf and asks after Merry. He is given news of Eowyn. Great joy of Eomer.

All that night Aragorn tends the sick, for the Kings of Gondor had both a craft and a power of healing, and by this [?latter] it was made clear that the true king was returned. Faramir opens his eyes and looks on Aragorn and love springs between them.

Merry too recovers.

Counsel [read Council] of the Lords. Gandalf warns them that what Denethor had said is true: there was no final victory in arms against the Enemy. We fought here as best we could, because we had to; and it is so appointed in this world that resistance must be made to evil without final hope. But when we take arms to attack we are using that power which is pre-eminently found in the Ring, and it would be logical to do as Denethor desired in that case: to use the Ring. So indeed we should probably [?now] have victory and overthrow Sauron.

But only to set up another. So that in the end the result would be as evil, if different, or possibly worse, as if Sauron recovered the Ring. Therefore have I ..... (3) recovery in order that for a great age victory should be otherwise.

But we must still use such power as we have. And not delay.

Sauron must still be kept busy and deem we have the Ring.

Another page of outline-notes, very roughly pencilled, probably followed this.

Long sojourn of rest in Minas Tirith and coming of Finduilas?(4) [written above: and Galadriel].

Hobbits all go home via Rohan: funeral of Theoden, and then through Gap and up west of Misty Mountains to Rivendell and then home.

Yes, said Sam, as he closed the Book. That all happened a long time ago.

Aragorn will only enter as lord of the Forod, not as king.(5) Lords ride in, and see Theoden lying in state. Where is Gandalf? He comes in late [or later] and tells of Theoden's fall,(6) and Yoreth's words.

They go to Houses of Healing, and Aragorn asks for athelas.

He heals the sick. Yoreth says he must be king. After supper he heals many sick.

Council next day. Gandalf's advice. Merry wakes up feeling nearly well. While Council is [?on] Gimli, Legolas and Pippin talk. They ..... and hear of the love of Eowyn for Aragorn at Dunharrow. And of the great ride to Pelargir.

The lords ride east: 1000 Rohirrim, Dol Amroth and [?so on].

And a first force to hold Morgul. They ride into shadow of ambush. Peril.

A complete draft ('A') for the chapter now followed, written rapidly but legibly in ink. In the first part of the chapter there are passages of marked divergence from the story that followed. The manuscript A was followed by a fair copy 'B', for which some pages were taken out of A, including the opening page bearing the chapter number and title:

'Ch.L The Houses of Healing', the number changed subsequently to

'XLIX (b)'.(7)

The first divergence in A from RK comes with Gandalf's words when he came on Pippin and Merry on the pavement of the main street up to the Citadel (RK p. 135):

'He should have been borne in honour into this City,' he said.

'Greater was the wisdom of Elrond than mine. For if I had had my way neither you nor he, Pippin, would have set out; and then far more grievous would the evils of this day have been.

Faramir and Eowyn would be dead, and the Black Captain would be abroad to work ruin on all hope.'

This was repeated in the fair copy B, and {with loss of the final sentence 'Faramir and Eowyn would be dead ...') in the following typescripts: the change to 'He has well repaid my trust: for if Elrond had not yielded to me, neither of you would have set out' was not made until the book was in proof. This is decidedly strange: for the form of the Choosing of the Company in The Fellowship of the Ring (p. 289), in which it was through Gandalf's advocacy against Elrond that Merry and Pippin were included, had been reached long before in the second version of 'The Ring Goes South' (VII.164). Earlier than this, it is true, Gandalf had also been opposed to their inclusion ('Elrond's decision is wise', he had said, VII.115), but only here, and again in 'The Last Debate' (p. 415), is there any suggestion that it was Elrond who advocated their inclusion in opposition to Gandalf.

In the passage that follows, after the account of the 'leechcraft of Gondor' and the unknown malady named 'the Black Shadow' that came from the Nazgul, the text of A is much briefer than that of RK

(p. 136):

And those that were so stricken fell slowly ever into a deeper dream, and from fever passed to a deadly cold and so died. But Faramir burned with a fever that would not abate.

And an old wife, Yoreth

Thus there is no reference here to the morning wearing away and the day passing to sunset, while 'still Gandalf waited and watched and did not go forth'; and after Yoreth had uttered the old saying that 'The hands of the king are the hands of a healer' A diverges altogether from the later story.

'Mithrandir is wise and skilful,' said another. 'In this at least he is not a king,' said the old wife. 'He has done much for us, but rather his skill lies in the teaching of men, to do what they can or should.'

But Gandalf seeing that all was done that could be done for the present arose and went out, and calling for Shadowfax rode away.

But Pippin and Berithil found themselves together little needed while the sick were yet in peril, and while such errands as were needful were done by the boys, Bergil and his friends, who had been saved from the wreck of the Rath a Chelerdain and sent up hither. So they went to the roof of the house that stood above the battlement of the wall, and they looked out.

The battle now raged upon the fields; but it was far from the walls, and all the enemy had now been drawn away from the City; and they could not mark how fortune went: nought but a dust and a smoke in the distance away southward, and a far crying of horn and of trumpet. Yet so it was that Pippin with the farsighted eyes of his people was the first to descry the coming of the fleet.

'Look, look, Berithil!' he cried. 'The Lord was not all demented. He saw something in truth. There are ships on the River.'

'Yes,' said Berithil. 'But not such as he spoke of. I know the ...(8) of those ships and their sails. They come from Umbar and the havens of the Corsairs. Hark!'

And all about them men were crying in dismay: 'The Corsairs of Umbar!'

'You may say what you like and so may they,' said Pippin,

'but this I will say for my lord who is dead: I will believe him.

Here comes Aragorn. Though how, and why in this way I cannot guess. Here comes the heir of Elendil!' he shouted; but no one, not even Berithil, took any heed of his small voice.

Yet true he proved. And at last it was known in the City. And all men were full of wonder. And so hope grew as the day rose to noon and waned, and at last it came to the red sunset. And watchers looking out saw all the fields before them dyed as with blood, and the sky above them was bloodred, and at last ere the red burned out to evening ash-grey over the fields of the Pelennor rode the captains in victory to the City.

Aragorn and Eomer and Imrahil now drew near the City with their captains and knights; and when they came before the Gates Aragorn said: 'Behold the setting of the sun in fire ...'

Aragorn's words are then as in RK p. 137, and his speech with Eomer that follows; but with Imrahil's intervention the original text diverges again:

And the Prince Imrahil said: 'Wise are your words, lord, if one who is kinsman of the house of the Stewards may venture to give counsel. Yet I would not have you remain at the door like a beggar.'

'Then I will not,' laughed Aragorn. '[added: I will enter as one.] The banner shall be furled and the tokens no more displayed.' And he bade Halbarad [> Elladan](9) to furl the standard, and he removed the crown and stars (10) and gave them to the keeping of the sons of Elrond. And he entered the City on foot clad only in a grey mantle above his mail and bearing no other token save the green stone of Galadriel, and he said: 'I come only as Aragorn Lord of the Rangers of Forod.'(11) And so the great captains of victory passed through the city and the tumult of the people, and mounted to the Citadel, and came to the Hall of the Tower seeking the Steward.

The description of Theoden lying in state follows as in RK (pp.

137-8), but then the story of his afterlife in the mound at Edoras is introduced and expanded from the outline given on p. 385; I cite it here from the fair copy B, where the text is all but identical to A except in the words heard from the mound.(12)

And thus, it was said in song, he remained ever after while the realm of Rohan endured. For when later the Rohirrim bore his body away to the Mark and laid it in the mounds of his fathers, there, clad in the cloth of gold of Gondor, he slept in peace unchanged, save only that his hair still grew and was turned to silver, and at times a river of silver would flow from Theoden's Howe. And that was a token of prosperity; but if peril threatened then at whiles men would hear a voice in the mound crying in the ancient tongue of the Mark:

Arisath nu Ridend mine!

Theodnes thegnas thindath on orde!

Feond oferswithath! Forth Eorlingas!

Then follow the questions of Imrahil and Eomer in the Hall of the Tower, whereby they learn that 'the Steward is in the Houses of Healing' (thinking that this means Denethor), and Eomer learns that Eowyn is still living, just as in RK, except that when Eomer leaves the hall 'the others followed him' ('and the Prince followed him' RK), because Aragorn is present.

And when they came forth evening had come, with many stars And even as the light waned Gandalf returned alone out of the East up the road from Osgiliath, glimmering in the twilight. And he went also to the Houses of Healing, and he met the Lords before its doors. And they greeted him; and they said:

'We seek the Steward and it is said that he is in this house.

In the passage that follows there are differences from RK, in that Aragorn does not only now appear as 'the cloaked man' come with Gandalf, unrecognised until he steps into the lantern-light. Thus Imrahil says: 'Shall it not be the lord Aragorn?', and Aragorn replies:

'No, it shall be the Lord of Dol Amroth until Faramir awakes. But it is my counsel that Mithrandir should rule us all in the days that follow and our dealings with the Enemy.' Then Gandalf speaks as in RK of his sole hope for the sick resting in Aragorn, and quotes the words of Yoreth.

When Aragorn encounters Berithil and Pippin at the door Pippin says: 'Trotter! How splendid. There, Berithil, you see Denethor was right after all.' The last sentence was struck out, and replaced by Pippin's words in RK (p. 139): 'Do you know, I guessed it was you in the black ships. But they were all shouting Corsairs and would not listen to me. How did you do it?' And when Imrahil says to Eomer

'Yet perchance in some other name he will wear his crown', Aragorn overhearing replies: 'Verily, for in the high tongue of eld I am Elessar, Elfstone, the renewer.'(13) Then lifting the green stone of Galadriel he says: 'But Trotter shall be the name of my house, if ever that be established; yet perhaps in the same high tongue it shall not sound so ill, and tarakil (14) I will be and all the heirs of my body.'

In the following passage the first section that I have enclosed in square brackets is so enclosed in the manuscript, with a query against it, though it was used in RK; the second section in square brackets has a line drawn round it in the manuscript with a mark of deletion and a query against it. In the fair copy the first is again put within square '

brackets, and the second does not appear.

And so they went in. [And as they passed towards the rooms where the sick were tended Gandalf told of the deeds of Eowyn and Meriadoc. 'For,' he said, 'long have I stood by them, and at first they spoke much in their sleep dreaming, before they sank into a yet deeper darkness. Also it is given to me to see many things afar off.] [And when there came a ...(15) cry from the fields I was near to the walls and looked out. And even as I did, the doom long foretold came to pass, though in a manner that had been hidden from me. Not by the hand of man was the Lord of the Nazgul doomed to fall, and in that doom placed his trust.

But he was felled by a woman and with the aid of a halfling,(16) and I heard the fading of his last cry borne away by the wind.']

It will be seen that there were major differences in the structure of the story as told in A from its form in RK. In the first place, the distant.

view of the battlefield seen by Pippin and Berithil from the roof of the Houses of Healing is told in direct narrative, and thus the coming of the black fleet up Anduin is repeated from 'The Battle of the Pelennor Fields'. Since Pippin and Berithil were present at the House of the Stewards in Rath Dinen they had heard Denethor accuse Gandalf of intriguing to displace him: 'But I know your mind and its plots. Do I not see the fleets even now coming up Anduin! So with the left hand you would use me as a shield against Mordor, and with the right hand bring up this Ranger of the North to take my place' (p. 378). This knowledge Denethor had acquired from the palantir. The idea that Denethor knew that Aragorn was in command of the ships of the Corsairs was changed on the draft manuscript (G) of 'The pyre of Denethor' (p. 379), and in the fair copy of that chapter, already as first written, his knowledge of Aragorn is derived as in RK from his conversations with Pippin: his sight of the black fleet becomes for him an overpowering proof of the futility of resistance to Mordor. The present text must therefore have preceded the fair copy of 'The Pyre of Denethor'.