Faramir Fiction Archive

The Moon Has Waned (PG-13)

Written by Erfan Starled

22 August 2010 | 17300 words

Epilogue

“Captain, here is a table free.” The proprietor of ‘The Deer and Duck’ hastily swept the table clean with a cloth from his shoulder.

Faramir sat without speaking, feeling strangely ill at ease, but nodded his thanks.

The tavern servant followed him, murmuring, “Your usual, sir?” He set down a flagon of mead and a cup even as he asked the question.

Faramir thanked him and settled back, sword pushed aside, legs stretched out, leaning comfortably against the wall to savour the first mouthful of mead. He was back. But the person he had been before eluded him… His returned sword, Hajiri’s parting gift, felt heavy at his belt. With sharpened eyes, he reviewed the room, glad of its crowded condition. He was the less conspicuous thereby.

His return journey had passed with little further adventure. With regret, he had folded the jihabi under a stone before crossing into South Gondor, grateful for its protection. The last miles culminated in huge mutual relief when he presented himself to the first patrol whose path he crossed. Whether he saw them first, or they him became a matter of joking debate, but the ranger party had taken him up and fed him, overjoyed and not troubling to hide it. A runner to the city returned with a message to complete his tour of duty, over which Faramir had grimaced, expecting no softer greeting from his father, and yet it hurt. Boromir had been away.

Esgarin and his men on the other hand — Faramir folded his hands before him on the table and regarded them. If ever he felt in any doubt that the soldiers he led held him in regard, he need only recall Esgarin’s face and the others’ as they gathered round when he arrived, duly escorted, at their camp.

Now, foreign adventures survived, Gondor’s own peculiar, stony beauty took him once more to her warmer, beating heart in the lower streets for more mundane pursuits.

The inn lad came back with a small keg in the crook of one tautly muscled arm and refilled the flagon on the table. He would gain his full growth later in his twenties as he acquired a little more muscle, judged Faramir, and wondered if he was struggling with his new-found adulthood. His smile and high-held head showed no sign of it.

Too well did Faramir remember his own yearning to earn an adult’s status, the too-slow realization that his father’s approval was barely to be earned at all, no matter what duties he fulfilled with his best efforts. He could hope forever, and still go disappointed. The thought pained him even now, as did the memory of a much younger boy who had craved his father’s love and been rebuffed. He had pinned his dreams after that on achievements that would earn his father’s respect, only for those too to fade with time. And still, he hoped and loved, though for life’s warmth he had learned to turn elsewhere.

Eswin lingered, disconcerted by the sober stare, so far from the Captain’s usual delicacy.

“Sir?”

“What name do you go by, again?” Faramir asked him quietly.

“Eswin, sir.”

Faramir nodded dismissal, and wondered how many of the inn’s frequenters had already pursued the attractions Eswin did not hide. The youth looked back at him as he walked away, a question in his eyes.

Hajiri had night-black eyes and smelled of the oils and soaps of a far-off land. Faramir felt as transparent as elven glass, as if it must be obvious to anyone here who knew him what had happened and what he had done. He turned his cup between his hands, hovering between a frown and a smile. It was so strange to be home, knowing what he knew of his time so far afield, what no-one else would ever know of him. Hajiri was gone across an enemy’s lines, and gone across miles and time, for already he belonged to Faramir’s past.

Faramir wondered if he buried himself in some willing black-haired flirt whether he could perhaps forget the dust-hot smell of southern flowers distilled by sweat and a man’s musk. He doubted it and, nursing the secret gladness of remembrance, felt the little smile persist.

Faramir drank and took his ease, and watched the room while he waited for Esgarin to join him and others of their cronies to arrive. He had little expectation of moving from his place until they had eaten and joked, drunk and gossiped, boasted and sung their way well into the early morning hours, pursuits familiar and acceptable and expected of him.

He tried to imagine what Hajiri was doing now. Certainly not drinking to excess, not that quiet man with his poised walk and still hands, who could stare into the distance with all the patience of long custom and a tranquil mind.

And what of himself? Was he going to starve that part of his heart forever that wanted more than his comrades’ company for a game of cards? Could he be forever satisfied with a brother’s smile? Or a friend’s bear-hug, like Esgarin’s on seeing him? It did him good to remember that long, long look and the slow smile which started in Esgarin’s delighted eyes.

“Well, you took your time,” Esgarin had drawled and clapped him on the back. The others had laughed, easing the tension of relief into something more workaday. Faramir suspected that hug had been designed to hide Esgarin’s feelings.

No, Faramir was not short of friendship, but sitting on his hard bench in this familiar haunt he was no longer sure it was enough, not when one memory led so easily to another, so very different and so far away. Even limned only by starlight and fire, the crinkling of Hajiri’s eyes and his white smile in their frame of expressive lines had been easy to see. Faramir stirred restlessly and pushed his cup away.

He watched Eswin dodge a customer. Gondor was not the edge of the desert. No man of Gondor could exert the spell the desert had wrought. And he was the Steward’s son, in whom respect for the White City and her laws was ingrained. Abruptly he finished his draught and put down money to cover it. Gondor was unaltered in his absence, but he was no longer in the mood for drinking.

On his way out, he brushed past the youth and they paused, meeting eye to eye. So narrow was the passage, they could not help but touch.

Eswin, waylaid by his quizzically frowning master, received a short message delivered by a nondescriptly dressed man who withdrew immediately.

“You’re wanted.” The inn keeper jerked his head toward the rear door. “There’s an escort awaiting you. Mark me, Eswin, I’ll have no gossips working here, do you understand me?” Worriedly, he searched the lad’s face.

Comprehension filled the youth’s expression with hope and he nodded vigorously.

“You’re only to go if you want to. I suppose it’s too much to think you might want to refuse? No? I thought so. Be careful, then,” ordered his master. “And wash before you go,” he added hastily.

Faramir was waiting. Eswin, still slick with water from his hurried dousing, looked at him doubtfully, so solemn did the Captain seem, nothing like the shy drunk of the discreet smiles he had been used to.

“Iraehel,” murmured Faramir, and laughed at the youth’s face. “Don’t mind me. Come,” he patted the bed. “I take it you are willing?”

Afterwards, Faramir stared at the scudding clouds through the open window, dimly pale in the sickle moon’s small light. Eswin was a gently snoring shadow by his side, drawn close. The wind, gusting freely around the hired room, set their clothes dancing like billowing ghosts on their pegs by the door, bringing with it the tangy smoke of hearth and smithy. Other smells intruded, of food, drink and the ubiquitous waste of a city’s population, no matter how efficiently carted out to waiting fields. Feet on stone, and hooves and wheels, clattered in the night and walls echoed with carters’ complaints and drunkards’ jokes.

The desert was far away. Home where he belonged, Faramir gazed out of the window and watched the moon sail behind the clouds. Gondor’s walls surrounded him but his heart felt larger, spacious; large enough to hold the sound of sifting sands and the scent of flowers, fragrant and foreign in a night when stars felt close enough to touch.

Eswin sighed and smiled in his sleep, and Faramir felt glad of the warmth and earthy weight beside him. The desert was far away but its spell, Hajiri’s gift, had proven stowaway and travelled with him. Faramir sighed and smiled in turn, and knew he would be forever richer for knowing an enemy’s honourable heart and the embrace of a desert spell.

The End

Tramontata È La Luna

Tramontata è la luna
e le Peiadi a mezzo della notte;
giovinezza dilegua,
e io nel mio letto resto sola.

Scuote l’anima mia Eros,
come vento sul monte
che irrompe entro le querce;
e scioglie le membra e le agita,
dolce amaro indomabile serpente.

Ma a me non ape, non miele;
e soffro e desidero.

The Moon Has Waned

The moon has waned
and the Pleiades have reached the middle of their night;
youth fades,
and I in my bed remain alone.

Eros shakes my heart
like wind on the mountain
which bursts among the oak trees;
and he melts my limbs and stirs his fire into them,
sweet bitter untameable serpent.

But for me neither bee nor honey;
I suffer and I desire.

~ Sappho ~

A.N. ‘The Moon Has Waned’ Synthesized from Fragments 20, 50, 52, 94 & 137 by Sappho (Greek) into the Italian ‘Tramontata È La Luna’ by Lirici Greci (1940).
Italian to English by Anon

j_dav sent me the poem, thank you!

NB: Please do not distribute (by any means, including email) or repost this story (including translations) without the author's prior permission. [ more ]

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