Faramir Fiction Archive

Memory and Time (R)

Written by Mira Took

21 December 2012 | 2754 words | Work in Progress

Remedies

When the baby reached his sixth month, he was strong enough for the healers to be more assured of his survival. Every one of them knew that little Faramir’s continued health was solely due to the efforts of his grandfather’s favorite captain. When the infant, then only weeks old, had first begun to ail, Thorongil had begged leave to try some Northern remedy he had been taught. The learned healers had been suspicious of the captain’s ability, but the results had borne out his modest claims. The captain had continued the treatment over the following months, spending an hour or two each evening with the steward’s youngest grandson.

At first, the captain had been accompanied on these visits, so someone might study the cure, but that had ended after it became apparent that Thorongil’s work was efficacious. In truth, the young healer-in-training assigned to observe the new methods had been rather bored by them; Herion’s proposed specialty was in brewing and mixing herbal medicines. While Captain Thorongil did indeed make use of an herb, what he did with it could hardly be termed medical. He simply immersed the weedy flower in warm water, as ladies did with lavender, to soak the cloths he used to soothe the baby. As to the rest, all the captain seemed to do was touch the child, with his sure, steady hands moving and pressing in regular patterns. The young herbalist soon lost interest and spent the time reviewing his notes for his tutor, which now and again he and the captain would discuss after the baby was asleep. Thorongil was knowledgeable about plants and herbs, for a solider, and he had some very sensible things to say about the importance of harkening to one’s patients’ individual needs that somehow never came up in tutorials. Many of the ill of Minas Tirith had cause to be thankful for these quiet talks, when Herion became himself the master tutor of healers in the Houses.

Little Faramir’s parents never came when he was receiving his healing. Denethor, who thoroughly detested Captain Thorongil and hated to be beholden to him, was only too pleased to let the healers and the nurses do the job of supervising. He was careful, too, to keep his delicate wife away, lest the foreign captain say something upsetting about the baby’s condition. It was bad enough that Finduilas had had to stay abed for weeks before the birth, worse that the baby when it came had been a puny, red, wrinkled thing, as unlike plump, bawling Boromir as one babe could be from another. The final insult was that the miserable creature was awakened at night with these unexplained fits, frightening his mother and puzzling even the most experienced nursemaid. At first, everyone had said colic but then the diets and remedies for that had done no good. Next they had suspected some trouble of the mind or senses, but the baby had responded excellently to all the tests devised by healers for such a young infant. He was not colicky, nor blind, nor deaf, nor without the proper reflexes, nor inclined toward palsy in the limbs. He was not sickened by any substance except baked pears, which his elder brother had also rejected in no uncertain way upon first being introduced to solid food. Nothing was wrong with Faramir except his terrible, unsoothable hysterics in the night. Yes, Denethor was only too pleased to leave the healers, and the nurses, and the detested Captain Thorongil to deal with the problem. He was all fatherly solicitude in public and before the baby’s keepers, as befitted the steward’s heir, but he kept himself and his lady away.

So it came that more and more Captain Thorongil was left alone with the child. The nursemaid was always happy at the chance to snatch some rest or a word with the night servants, among whom she had a particular admirer. The nice captain never minded and would spent at least an hour with the dear baby anyway. She could slip out with an easy mind, leaving little Faramir asleep on the captain’s lap as they sat before the hearth.

The king sat now, half facing his prince, half facing the fire, and asked, “Faramir, what do you remember of the place the Nazgûl sent you? The place where I found you?”
Faramir stared at the fire. “I try not to think of it, my king.” he replied honestly. “I remember being cold, bitterly cold, as though I stood naked in a winter wind. And I remember — voices. Telling me things. I am not certain what they said. It was all mixed together: the cold, the voices, the pain. I think I could feel the words against my skin, leeching away warmth, and hear the cold, roaring in my ears. — Forgive me. I know that doesn’t make any sense.’

‘I remember the cold, too, for I felt it against my own spirit as I sought for you in the dark.’ Aragorn turned slightly to watch Faramir’s averted face. ‘Do you remember what you saw in that place?’

Faramir’s brow furrowed in puzzlement and he looked up to meet Aragorn’s gaze. ‘No, my king, what was it?’

‘I asked because I do not know. My only concern at the time was to draw you back to the waking world. But now I wonder if there were a greater injury than your wounds or even the corruption of the Nazgûl.’

‘My king?’

‘You were crying out in your sleep this night, Faramir, in the grip of some evil dream.’

Faramir looked away again.

‘Do you remember what you were dreaming?’

‘No, lord, I am sorry. Only that it was not my wave dream, that is, a dream I have had often before. I remember those vividly. But I rarely recall my other dreams upon waking.’

‘I think this was a dream that had meaning, Faramir. One that will haunt your sleep if you do not discover its purport.’ Aragorn hesitated to go on. It was difficult at this moment to be Faramir’s king as well as his healer. He doubted the younger man would think to deny him any request, however unwelcome. It was hardly fair to ask anything of him. Yet to have the certain means to alleviate Faramir’s suffering and not to use them —

‘How can that be done, my king?’ Faramir’s tone made it clear he expected Aragorn to know the solution. ‘Is the treatment very unpleasant? For you look as though you fear I will balk at it.’

‘Not balk, my prince. But you may do well to consider whether the remedy is better than the disease. You were in some distress when I came in, and I believe this will continue or grow worse if the meaning of your dream is not addressed. But the only way I know to do so, since you cannot recall the dream yourself, is for me to share it with you and so draw it out into your waking mind.’

‘Will that be dangerous to you? If I am in such distress and then you share it?’

‘No, my de- my prince,’ Aragorn smiled a little at Faramir’s protectiveness. ‘I was taught by my foster father Elrond the proper way to enter another’s dreams. The danger is rather that I will be seeing more than you would wish me to, beyond the single dream and behind it to all the images and associations that your mind uses to create your dreaming world. There is no way to avoid that, for without such moorings the visions come adrift and loose coherence. I would not seek out your private thoughts, but I would assuredly come across them.’

Faramir again looked Aragorn in the eyes. ‘My king, I think that no man can say his inmost thoughts are fit to be seen by another. But since you offer this remedy, I willingly give you leave to carry it out.’

‘Then look into the fire, Faramir. Sit thus,’ Here Aragorn placed his hands gently on the younger man’s shoulders and turned him so that his face was toward the hearth and his back almost against Aragorn’s knees. ‘And breathe deeply. Look into the fire, Faramir, and let your eyes rest on its light…’

To be continued…

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