The War of the Ring (69 page)

In the form of the story in A Pippin has a reason for declaring that Aragorn is coming with the fleet ('There, Berithil, you see Denethor was right after all', p. 390) and for shouting 'Here comes the heir of Elendil!' when everyone was crying 'The Corsairs of Umbar!' (p. 388); in RK he can have no reason at all for his words to Aragorn ('Do you know, I guessed it was you in the black ships'), nothing but a strange presentiment.

In the second place, Gandalf leaves the Houses of Healing long before sunset and disappears on Shadowfax. Aragorn does not refuse to enter Minas Tirith with Eomer and Imrahil; and thus he is present at the door of the Houses of Healing when Gandalf comes back, returning alone 'up the road from Osgiliath' in the dusk (p. 389).

Nothing is told of his errand (but I think it can be seen what it was from the B version of this part of the story, to be given shortly). In the changed story he did not leave the Houses of Healing until sunset, and his errand was to bring Aragorn in from outside the walls: this being a sudden decision inspired by the words of Yoreth. In the A version he does not appear to take any particular account of her words, and he leaves when he sees that 'all was done that could be done for the present'; yet when he returns he says as in RK that 'only in [Aragorn's]

coming have I any hope for those that lie within', quoting the words of Yoreth.

A remarkable short text evidently belongs to this phase in the development of the story, as is seen from the fact that Aragorn has entered the city without Gandalf, who is looking for him. This text is found on an isolated slip in my father's worst handwriting, which he partly elucidated in pencil (with some queries), and slightly changed, in not quite his worst handwriting.

'Did you ride with the Rohirrim?' said Gandalf.

'Nay indeed,' said Legolas. 'A strange journey we have had with Aragorn by the Paths of the Dead, and we came here at the last in ships taken from our foes. Not often has one the chance to bring news to you, Gandalf!'

'Not often,' said Gandalf heavily. 'But my cares are many in these days, and my heart is sad. I am growing weary at last, Gloin's son, as this great matter draws to the final edge of its doom. Alas! alas! How our Enemy contrives evil out of our good. For the Lord of the City slew himself in despair seeing the black fleet approach. For the coming of the fleet and the sword of Elendil secured the victory but gave the last stroke of despair to the Lord of the City. But [?come], I must still labour. Tell me, where is Aragorn? Is he in these tents?'

'Nay, he has gone up into the City,' said Legolas, 'cloaked in grey and secretly.'

'Then I must go,' said Gandalf.

'But tell us in return one thing first,' said Gimli. 'Where are those young friends of ours who cost us such great pains? It is to be hoped that they were not [?worsted] and they are still alive.'

'One is lying grievously sick in the City after a great deed,'

said Gandalf, 'and the other stays beside him.'

'Then may we come with you?' said Gimli.

'You may indeed!' said Gandalf.

This encounter on the fields of the Pelennor was lost, and nowhere else is Gandalf's meeting with Legolas and Gimli after they parted at Dol Baran recorded.

As the fair copy B was first written, Gandalf's earlier departure from the Houses of Healing and the scene in which Berithil and Pippin see the black fleet from the roof were retained;(17) but there are two significant differences. After Yoreth's words it is now said: 'But Gandalf hearing this saying, and seeing that all was done that could be done by the leechcraft of Gondor, arose and went out'; and the conversation of Berithil and Pippin is now changed:

'Look, look, Berithil!' he cried. 'The Lord did not see only visions of madness. Here come the ships up the River that he spoke of. What are they?'

'Alas!' answered Berithil. 'Now I can almost forgive his despair. 1 know the fashion of these ships and their sails, for that is the duty of all watchmen. They come from Umbar and the Haven of the Corsairs! Hark!'

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

Pippin's heart sank. It seemed bitter to him that after the joy of the horns at dawn hope should be destroyed again. 'I wonder where Gandalf has gone,' he thought. And then another question arose in his mind: 'Aragorn: where is he? He should have come with the Rohirrim, but he doesn't seem to have done so.'

'Berithil,' he said, 'I wonder: could there be any mistake?

What if this was really Aragorn with the Broken Sword coming in the nick of time?'

'If so, he is coming in the ships of our enemies,' said Berithil.

It seems that Pippin's thought here, 'I wonder where Gandalf has gone' giving rise to the question 'Aragorn: where is he?', taken with the more explicit statement concerning Gandalf's departure, makes it certain that he had gone, as in the later story, to find Aragorn and (because 'the hands of the king are the hands of a healer') to bring him urgently to the Houses of Healing.(18) But why Gandalf did not return till dusk, after Aragorn had entered the city, is not explained.

At this point my father struck from the B manuscript all that followed 'and then passed to silence and a deadly cold, and so died'

(RK p. 136; see p. 387) and replaced it with the text that stands in RK, with Gandalf leaving the Houses of Healing at sunset, his thought and purpose now perfectly plain: 'Men may long remember your words, Yoreth; for there is hope in them. Maybe a king has indeed returned to Gondor; or have you not heard the strange tidings that have come to the City?' To the point we have reached in A ('Also it is given to me to see many things afar off', p. 390) the fair copy B (apart from the passage concerning Theoden's Howe at Edoras already cited, and a few points that are mentioned in the notes) then has the text of RK.

The latter part of the chapter in A was written with remarkable fluency - or, at any rate, the text as it stands in this original draft (19) was scarcely changed afterwards. The only notable divergence from RK is found in the passage where Aragorn, Eomer, and Gandalf speak beside Eowyn's bed; for while the actual words of RK (p. 143) are present, what became Gandalf's speech is given to Aragorn. He begins: 'My friend, you had horses and deeds of arms ...', and continues to '... a hutch to trammel some wild thing in?' (where Gandalf ceases in RK), and then (without the sentence 'Then Eomer was silent, and looked on his sister, as if pondering anew all the days of their past life together') goes on, from the point where he begins in RK: 'I saw also what you saw. And few other griefs amid the ill chances of this world ...' Above 'said Aragorn' at the beginning of the speech my father wrote, almost certainly while still writing this manuscript, 'Gandalf?'; and subsequently he made in pencil the changes that give the passage the form that it has in RK.

Beyond this there are only details to mention. The herb-master, in his discourse concerning the plant kingsfoil, declares it to be named athelas 'in the noble tongue, or to those who know somewhat of the Numenorean - ', 'Numenorean' being changed later both on A and on B to 'Valinorian' (and afterwards to 'Valinorean'); and Aragorn replies: 'I do so, and care not whether you say now asea aranaite or kingsfoil, so long as you have some.' The form aranaite became aranion on the final typescript.

When Aragorn leaves Merry (RK p. 146) he says: 'May the Shire for ever live unwithered and unchanged. For this, maybe, more than all else, I hope and labour';(20) the last part of this, from 'and unchanged', being struck from the fair copy.(21)

The chapter in A ended with Gandalf's words with the Warden of the Houses of Healing: '"They are a remarkable race," said the Warden, nodding his head. "Very tough in the fibre, I deem." "It goes deeper than the fibre," said Gandalf.' The conclusion of the chapter in RK is roughed out in a pencilled text that was subsequently overwritten by material belonging to 'The Last Debate' (cf. note 19), but some of it can be read. Where the fair copy B has (as in RK) 'and so the name which it was foretold at his birth that he should bear was chosen by his own people', this first draft has 'and so his own choice was fulfilled [?in] the title chosen long before.' The final passage is largely illegible, but the following can be seen: 'And [?in the morning] when he had slept a little he arose and ..... called a council and the captains met in a chamber of the Tower ...' The fair copy ends as does the chapter in RK, with Aragorn leaving the city just before dawn and going to his tent; and pencilled beneath the last words of the text is this note: 'Aragorn will not go in the City again. So Imrahil, Gandalf and Eomer hold council [in the] tents with the sons of Elrond.'

NOTES.

1. and the mist before his eyes cleared a little: this was added after the 'a' part of the text was written and joined on to 'b'.

2. This passage is enclosed within square brackets in the manuscript.

3. A first illegible word here almost certainly begins res and ends ed, but cannot as it stands be read as resisted. A second word could þ be 'the' or 'his'.

4. For a previous mention of Finduilas Elrond's daughter see p. 370-5. Cf. the first narrative text (A) of the chapter, p. 389: 'I come only as Aragorn Lord of the Rangers of Forod.'

6. and tells of Theoden's fall: i.e. (I take it) the manner of Theoden's fall, of which Gandalf knew (cf. the second passage in square brackets on p. 390).

7. The first text A was paginated continuously on from 'The Pyre of Denethor', as also was the fair copy B. At some point my father wrote on the opening page of 'The Houses of Healing' (this page being common to both texts) the chapter number 'L', i.e.

separating it from 'The Pyre of Denethor'; but the number 'XLIX

(b)', following 'XLIX (a)' for 'The Pyre of Denethor' (see p. 382

note 5), again makes them subdivisions of a single chapter, without an overall title.

8. The word might, just possibly, be 'crewmen'. B has 'fashion'

(p. 392).

9. Halbarad was named among the slain in the original drafting of

'The Battle of the Pelennor Fields' (p. 371).

10. be removed the crown and stars: the word 'and' was struck out; the replacement is illegible, but may be 'of' with another word struck out, i.e. 'crown of stars'. In B this becomes simply 'the crown'; altered on the first typescript to 'the crown of the North Kingdom', this survived into the proof, on which it was altered to

'the Star of the North Kingdom'. Cf. 'The Battle of the Pelennor Fields', p. 370, where 'about his helm there was a kingly crown'

was replaced on the proof by 'upon his brow was the Star of Elendil'.

11. Cf. RK p. 138 (at a different point in the narrative): 'I am but the Captain of the Dunedain of Arnor'. In the fair copy manuscript, at the same point in the narrative as in RK, Aragorn says: 'I am but the Captain of the Rangers of Forod'.

12. In the first text A the verse is in modern English in the same words as in the outline on p. 385. In both A and B the passage is enclosed in square brackets.

13. In B the text remained almost the same: 'Verily, for in the high tongue of old I am Elessar, the Elfstone, and the Renewer', and this is the reading of the First Edition of LR. In the Second Edition Envinyatar was added before 'the Renewer'.

14. tarakil: the fourth letter (a) is not certain, but is very probable, especially in view of the form in B, where the text remained the same as in A but with Tarakon here. This was altered to Tarantar, which survived into the first typescript, where it was altered to Telkontar (> Telcontar on the proof).

15. The word begins with gr(e), but is certainly not great. Possibly the word intended was great, but the last letters, which look like ry, were due to the following word cry.

l6. On the doom of the Lord of the Nazgul see pp. 334 - 5, 368.

17. It is said of Bergil and his friends in this version (see p. 388):

'When the fire-bolts had fallen in the City they had been sent [to]

the upper circle; but the fair house in the Street of the Lampwrights had been destroyed.'

18. Cf. also the brief outline given on p. 386: 'Where is Gandalf? He comes in late and tells of Theoden's fall, and Yoreth's words.'

19. A part of the conclusion of the chapter, from '".He [Merry] lies nearby in this house, and I must go to him," said Gandalf' to 'For I have not slept in such a bed since I rode from Dunharrow, nor eaten since the dark before dawn' (RK pp. 145 - 6), is in fact extant in a preliminary pencilled text, subsequently over-written by a text in ink that belongs to the story of 'The Last Debate'.

This draft, most of which has been read by Taum Santoski, shows no significant differences from the more finished version in A.

20. Cf. Aragorn's words to Halbarad at Helm's Deep, p. 306.

21. I collect here a few other details. For 'whether Aragorn had indeed some forgotten power of Westernesse' (RK p. 144) A, and at first B, had 'art or wizardry'. The name Imloth Melui in Yoreth's recollection of her youth (RK p. 142) appears thus from the first; and as in RK (p. 146) Aragorn says to Merry that the herb-master will tell him that tobacco is called 'westmansweed by the vulgar, and galenas by the noble', where the pencilled draft that is extant for this portion of the chapter (note 19) has