Sword and Arrow

Chapter 71

The hobbits - accompanied by Gandalf - quietly left in the late evening a week later. Aragorn had heavily protested, insisting on accompanying them to at least the Gap of Rohan, but Gandalf had shut it down, insisting that he had much more important matters to mind than the disappearance of four small halflings.

And that was true. Ever since the crowning of the King, lords and barons and dukes had poured into the city, demanding an audience of the King immediately. It was a pain for Aragorn to deal with all of them - they all seemed to want something, whether land grants or money or for him to consider their (rather young) daughters - and aside from that, he had to determine which of them were really members of the nobility and who simply wanted his money.

It had happened, of course, and Beruthiel had had to deal with it. A fraud that claimed to hail from the small fief of Cennamben had demanded immediate attention from the King and had petitioned for funds to help with reparations from the war. Beruthiel had to explain to him that the King had in fact travelled extensively in the region that he claimed Fief Cennamben was from and that the fief did not in fact exist.

'Lord Cennamben' currently resided in the old prison along with his guard.

Beruthiel stood behind Aragorn's throne in her usual place, cloak trailing on the ground. Her hood was down and her hair neatly combed as she fixed the latest nobleman with a withering glare. These Gondorians really have no shame, she thought.

"My deepest condolences to your losses, Lord Mílchon," Aragorn said with as much sincerity as he could muster, his polished crown glimmering in the shaft of light that pierced the high ceiling of the throne room. "A battalion of Minas Tirith's finest knights will be sent with you to assist in the disposal of all remaining enemy forces."

"Thank you, my king," Lord Mílchon said. He bent into a deep bow - the deepest that Beruthiel had seen yet, none of the noblemen yet had seemed to have had much respect for the king - and left the grand room, a ragged cloak trailing limply behind him.

Though she didn't have much respect for the noblemen here, Beruthiel did feel sorry for Milchon. He held the difficult land in Harondor by the mouths of the Anduin and had suffered many attacks by the corsairs of Umbar and the Haradrim, leaving much of his holdings in ruins. Aragorn's gift of knights would be rather helpful to him.

Once Lord Mílchon had left the audience chamber, Aragorn slumped forward on the throne. He waved the guards out of the long room, leaving himself and Beruthiel alone. "This thing is very uncomfortable," he complained, rising with a little less grace than usual and rubbing his back. "And don't even get me started on this clunky thing." He took the crown off his head and dropped it on the stone seat.

"Aragorn," Beruthiel chided. "Treat it with a little more respect."

"I literally could not care less," he said with a sigh. Hitching his long, kingly robes up to his knees, he jogged down the stairs of the tall dais past where the Steward's chair had been. They had removed it and it was currently gathering dust in one of the king's treasuries.

Beruthiel huffed and squatted down to the edge of the platform and leapt off, landing with grace on the stone floor. The landing sent a bolt of pain along her shin, but she ignored it. She was getting out of practice, stuck in these wide open plains and confined to this stone city.

"I take it that you're not liking your duties as king," she noted, running a hand through her hair and immediately messing it up.

Aragorn shrugged. "I don't hate it. Don't get me wrong, I love helping people, but some of these people are a bit much to deal with, don't you think?"

"Oh, absolutely," she said. "You need someone to kick them out on their asses when you get tired of them."

He laughed. "Isn't that why you're here, love?"

"Oh, no," Beruthiel said with a shake of her head. "I'm here to use that amazing death glare of mine. I am much too dignified to kick someone out on their ass."

"Hmm," Aragorn said. "We could get Gimli to do it."

"He would definitely like that," she agreed.

In the distance, the Citadel clock chimed four o'clock. Aragorn glanced in the direction of the chimes, then turned back to Beruthiel. "Well, that's the end of my audience hours," he said. "Do you want to see something I found?"

She shrugged. "Always. What is it?"

"If I told you it won't be a surprise," he said with a wink. "But rest assured, it takes a lot of climbing."

Beruthiel perked up. "Wonderful. You might want to take off all those long kingly robes of yours, though."

"Oh. Yes." Aragorn undid the tight collar and the silver buttons that ran down his chest and shrugged off the heavy dark blue fabric. "I'll dump this in my office on the way."

"You know it's going to get wrinkled," Beruthiel said with a sigh.

"Yes, and I'm going to iron them," Aragorn said, rolling his eyes. "What kind of man do you think I am, Ruth? By the Valar." He shook his head, leading her between two of the enormous pillars supporting the ceiling to the hallway that led into the depths of the Citadel.

They took a quick stop to drop his clothes off into his office - Beruthiel made him fold them nicely - and then Aragorn led her to the back of the Citadel where the soldiers had their training grounds.

Beruthiel looked up at the tower that rose from the corner of the ground. "You don't mean..."

Aragorn grinned at her, taking her hand in his. "Oh, yes I do."

"Are we allowed to do that?"

Aragorn gave her a rather stern glance. Beruthiel blushed slightly with realization and glanced away. "Right."

"It used to be a guard tower," Aragorn explained. "Then it was a belltower, and now it's not in use anymore."

"And you've been up there?" Beruthiel asked skeptically.

Aragorn shrugged. "I went in to see if there are stairs, and there are. As long as the stairs are in good condition, we can go up from inside. If they aren't, we'll have to scale the sides."

She sighed. "Aragorn, what do you think people will think of you if they see their king climbing up a tower from the outside?"

"They'll think I'm a wonderful king," Aragorn said cheerfully. "Come on." He led Beruthiel to the tower, skirting around the ground so they didn't get mauled by a runaway sword or anything of the sort. The lack of robes and crown made them any regular Ranger and soldier duo - no one was going to take any further notice of a face many meters away in the shadows.

Aragorn's hand unconsciously went to the empty place on his ring finger where Barahir's ring usually sat. He had gotten used to its weight in the decades that he had worn it, and its absence felt strange to him.

They were almost to the tower when bells began to chime. Beruthiel frowned - the clock had already chimed four. But this wasn't the delicate chiming of bells - it was the deep, heavy ringing of the gongs that were used around to city to signal soldiers. An attack.

Beruthiel paused and held a finger up, silently counting the gongs and their patterns. Three, four... two. "Nobility entering the city," she said with a sigh. They had heard that gong a little too much in the past few days. But the gongs kept ringing. Five, seven, two. Beruthiel's eyes widened. She looked up at Aragorn, very very confused. "Royalty entering the city?"

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we already know who the royalty is, so i'm allowed to say that the next chapter will have quite a bit of legolas :)