The voice of the guard on duty abruptly brought him back to reality: “Your Majesty! Your Majesty! The White Company is back from Ithilien. Shall I ask them in?”
…Aragorn sat silently, head down and arms crossed over his chest; Cheetah sat in front of him in an armchair, bandaged foot awkwardly turned aside. He had finished his unhappy report a few minutes ago and was now awaiting the verdict.
Finally His Majesty raised his gaze. “Under those circumstances your actions have to be judged as appropriate, Captain. I would’ve done the same thing in your place. Well, that’s no surprise.”
“Yes, Your Majesty. Our shadow is your shadow.”
“You seem to want to ask something?”
“Yes. While in Ithilien we were bound hand and foot by the order to preserve Faramir’s life. Don’t you think it necessary to revise…” “No, I don’t.” The Dúnadan rose and strolled around the room thoughtfully. “You see, I have lived a turbulent life and am guilty of a multitude of sins, including some mortal ones… but I have never been an oath-breaker, and never will be.”
“What relevance does this have to real politics?”
“A very direct one. Faramir is an honorable man, so while I keep up my side of the bargain, he won’t abandon his, and I’m fairly satisfied with the status quo.”
“But now all who are unhappy with Your Majesty’s rule will gather in Ithilien!”
“Certainly, and that’s wonderful! This will rid me of opposition in Gondor – with no bloodshed, mind you. It will be Faramir’s problem now to make sure that those guys don’t do anything about restoring the old dynasty – he’s oath-bound, too.”
“So it doesn’t concern you that the Prince of Ithilien has already started some sort of murky dealings with the East?”
“This wasn’t in your report! Where did you get this information?”
“You see, the man who broke my foot was an Orocuen scout; the same night an Umbarian physician – Haladdin, I remember his name well – set it. Those men came from beyond the Mountains of Shadow together with the well-known baron Tangorn…”
“Hey! Describe this doctor to me!” Cheetah looked at Aragorn in surprise; the King leaned forward and his voice cracked a bit.
“…Yes, it’s him, without a doubt,” the Dúnadan murmured and closed his eyes for a few seconds. “So Tangorn had found Haladdin in Mordor and dragged him over to Faramir in Ithilien… Damn but you’ve kept the worst news for last! Looks like I have seriously underestimated that philosopher.”
“Forgive me, Your Majesty, for not yet knowing – who is this Haladdin?”
“Ah. You see, you’re about to head a small top-secret group – Task Force Féanor; it is not even part of the Secret Guard and reports directly to me. Its strategic task for the foreseeable future is to gather knowledge left behind by Mordor and Isengard for our own purposes. You can’t make do with just the books in this business, you need the people, too. A certain Doctor Haladdin is number eighteen on our list. Of course, it could be a coincidence that he met Tangorn, Faramir’s Umbarian resident, but I don’t believe in such coincidences.”
“Then you think… that Faramir is doing the same thing?”
“Usually, clever thoughts occur to smart minds simultaneously; by the way, the Elves are engaged in the same kind of search, to other ends, of course. The thing is that Faramir will have a much easier time searching thanks to his old connections in the East. That list we have is based on pre-war reports of his resident spies – praise Manwe that we, rather than the Elves, got the Royal archives… In any case, Captain – find this Tangorn immediately and get everything he knows out of him; then consider how to get our hands on whatever Ithilien has. There’s no task of greater importance now.”
“An abduction right out of Emyn Arnen?” Cheetah shook his head dejectedly. “But that damned Grager has practically destroyed our network there, it can hardly handle such a task.”
“Tangorn won’t stay in Emyn Arnen. No doubt Faramir will send him to Umbar, where he had so much success before the war: it’s full of Mordorian émigrés now, plus it’s the best possible location for secret diplomatic missions. Certainly they’ve already hid Haladdin somewhere… actually, that’s easy to check. I’ll send a courier to Emyn Arnen right away – I owe the Prince of Ithilien my best regards anyway. Should the messenger find neither Haladdin nor Tangorn there – which is what I expect – send your people to Umbar at once. Get moving, Captain, and get well soon: there’s plenty of work to do.”
“So where is Wolverine now?”
“He’s in Isengard, commanding a band of marauding Dungarians. His mission is obtaining ‘blasting fire.’”
“What about Mongoose?”
“He’s in Mindolluin, a prisoner in the quarry,” answered the Task Force Féanor member tasked with briefing Cheetah, clarifying: “He’s part of Operation Mockingbird, Captain. His extraction is planned for next Tuesday.”
“Can we speed up the wrap-up of that operation?”
“No, Captain, sir. Mongoose is working without cover, and that quarry is the Queen’s men bailiwick. Should we expose him, he’ll be dead in five minutes or less: ‘escape attempt’ and finished.”
“Very well,” he estimated a courier’s round-trip to Emyn Arnen, “this will keep till Tuesday. Send him to me the moment he shows up.”
Chapter 32
Gondor, Mount Mindolluin
May 19, 3019
From bird’s eye view the Mindolluin quarry which supplied limestone to Minas Tirith builders looked like a chipped porcelain bowl, its inside covered by hundreds of tiny persistent ants looking for traces of sugar. On a nice day like today the white cavity functioned as a sunlight-gathering reflector, and its inner area, isolated from the winds, was hot as hell. And this in the middle of May; Kumai tried not to think of what it was going to be like in the summer. Sure, the prisoners who ended up in Anfalas, on the galleys, fared much worse, but that was not much of a consolation. He was actually very lucky today, drawing a work detail at the very top edge, where a refreshing breeze blew and there was almost no chocking calcium dust. Of course, those working on the outer perimeter of the quarry had to wear leg irons, but he found that an agreeable trade-off.
For the second week now Kumai’s partner was Mbanga, a múmak driver from the Harad battalion, who did not speak Common. Over the last six weeks the overseers had kicked into him the knowledge of all the words they considered necessary and sufficient (up, go, carry this, roll that, hands on the back of your head); however, translating the expression ‘lazy black ass’ stupefied both sides, so they made do with ‘nigger.’ Mbanga was in kind of a permanent semi-dreaming state and did not seek to expand his vocabulary by communicating with the other prisoners. Perhaps he still mourned his perished Tongo – the múmakil and their drivers develop a human-like friendship, far beyond anything between a rider and his beloved horse. Or maybe in his mind the Haradi was in his unimaginably distant South, where the stars over the savannah are so large that you can reach them with the tip of your assegai if you stretch, where any man can use simple magic to turn into a lion, and where every woman is beautiful and tireless in love.