"How close."
The scout did not answer at first.
He had been sitting on the bench inside the watch-hut on the lower slope of the Weather Hills for two hours, with the small fire he had built himself for the warmth of his hands and not the heat of the room, and he had not, in the two hours, spoken more than a few words to the two Rangers who had come up with Aldric, or to Aldric himself. He had been told to take as long as he needed. The fire was small and the wind outside was steady.
Aldric had asked the question a beat ago.
The scout — a young Ranger, perhaps twenty-six, of the Bree-trained intake of the second class — looked up from his cup.
"Forty paces, my lord. Perhaps less. I had time to count five breaths before it crossed past."
"You were behind cover."
"I was behind the third stand of birches west of the road. I had been watching the road for the morning courier from Bree. I heard the horse before I saw it. The horse was — wrong, my lord. The horse was wrong before the rider."
"Wrong how."
"It did not breathe."
A pause.
The scout was, by Aldric's reading, a steady young man. He had been recommended for the watch-post on the Weather Hills by Halbarad himself, who did not, lightly, recommend men for the watch-post. The shaking in the boy's hands had stopped half an hour ago. The pallor under the eyes had stopped diminishing. He was, at present, as recovered as he was going to be for some weeks.
"And the rider."
"Black, my lord. Hooded. The cloak — the cloak did not move in the wind. The wind that morning was steady from the west. The cloak did not move."
"How fast was he riding."
"A canter. Not pressed. He was not running from a thing. He was running toward a thing. He had — he had the air of a man on errand who had been on the same errand for years. I have not, in my life, felt the cold the cold I felt at forty paces from him. I had to set my hand against the bark of the tree to keep from making a sound."
"You did not make a sound."
"I did not make a sound, my lord."
"You waited until he was past."
"I waited two hours."
"Two hours."
"I did not — I could not — I did not move for two hours, my lord. I do not have a better account to give of it. The hours went."
Halbarad, who had taken the chair by the door, did not say anything.
He was wrapped in his long coat with the hood up because the wind in the hut was steady through the door-frame and the wind on Halbarad's chest was, this winter, a thing the household had agreed without speaking to keep off him. He had ridden up the lower slope at a slower pace than the rest of the company. He had needed help, at the watch-hut door, with the dismount. He had taken the chair, set the holly staff between his feet, and listened.
He spoke now.
"Boy. The horse."
"Sir."
"You said the horse did not breathe. Tell me how you knew that."
The scout looked at the floor a moment.
"I — could see its head, sir. At forty paces, in the cold, the breath of a horse is a thing you see. A horse on a road in winter blows steam every breath. The horse on the road did not blow steam. I watched it pass and watched its head, and there was no steam, and there was no rise and fall, and I will not, until I die, believe what my own eyes told me on that road, but it is what they told me."
"Good."
"Sir?"
"Good. You have given me the part of the report that I needed. The rest I had already." Halbarad inclined his head, the small dry inclination. "Drink the cup down."
The scout drank the cup down.
Halbarad turned his head a quarter-turn toward Aldric.
"My lord."
"Halbarad."
"I have been asking for a watch line on the Weather Hills since the first thaw of last spring."
"I know."
"I am no longer asking, my lord. I am — registering."
"You have your watch line."
"Six posts. Manned in pairs. Rotation of three weeks. Reporting to the standing garrison of the Tenth, with cross-report to the Rangers' eastern circuit. I have drafted the orders."
"You have drafted the orders."
"My lord."
"Hand them in tonight. Approved before midnight."
Halbarad inclined his head. The inclination was, today, the largest gesture his neck would make.
Aldric stood up.
The young Ranger at the bench rose half a foot from the chair on reflex and Aldric set his hand briefly on the boy's shoulder as he passed, the small pressure that meant stay seated, the room is not the council, no protocol on a watch-hut floor. The boy sat back down. Aldric went to the hut door, and looked out across the slope of the Weather Hills to where the road bent away south through the bracken, and he stood at the door a long beat with one hand on the frame.
The road did not look any different from the road it had been for nine years.
He turned back to the hut.
"Halbarad."
"My lord."
"Stay sat for an hour before you ride."
"My lord."
"That is not a request."
"It is not a request, my lord."
Aldric went out.
[NORTHWATCH — THAT NIGHT]
The wall faced south.
He had come up to it after the council. He had not, on coming back from the Weather Hills, gone first to find Tauriel; he had gone to the council, because Halbarad's drafted orders had needed approving before midnight and Halbarad had not been with him on the ride back — the old man had stayed in the watch-hut for the hour Aldric had set, and an hour beyond, and had been brought down by the patrol the next morning — and Aldric had read the orders aloud in the council and signed them and stamped them and given them to the courier himself, and the courier had ridden out for the Tenth garrison before the second hour of the evening.
After that he had come up to the wall.
He had not sent for Tauriel. He had not needed to. He had not been at the wall longer than the time it took for the watch to change and one watch-fire to be relit when she came up the stair behind him.
She stood beside him.
She did not, immediately, speak.
After a beat she said: "I have been waiting for you to come down."
"I am sorry."
"You are not. You needed the wall. I waited. Tell me."
He told her.
He told her in the form he had given the council, which was the short version, and then in the longer form he gave only to her, which included the boy's hand on the bark of the birch and the horse that did not blow steam and the cloak that did not move in the wind. He told her about the watch-line and Halbarad's drafted orders and Halbarad's voice in the watch-hut. He told her about the road in the bracken which had not looked different and which was, now, different.
She listened without interrupting.
She kept her eyes on the south.
When he was done she said: "The Nine."
"The Nine."
"There were once seven of them visible in any country at once. There were nine when I was younger than I am, but most of them were in Mordor or Dol Guldur, and the seven outside were under the orders of one of the nine who held himself further out and did not, in those years, ride. The one your boy saw was either — was likely — the further-out one, or one of the seven on a long errand. I cannot tell you which from a single sighting at forty paces. I can tell you that the cold the boy described is what the cold of a Nazgûl at forty paces feels to a Man, and I can tell you the boy will not, for two months, sleep an unbroken night, and I can tell you that none of your captains is to engage a Nazgûl on the road alone. Not Theoden. Not Velan. Not Gorlim. They cannot. Not by anything they carry. There are blades that can wound them. Most are gone. The hand that strikes — even a wounding hand — pays for it. Glorfindel told me once that the wounding of a Nazgûl by mortal hand is the death of the hand within a year, by the form of the wound that goes back into the hand. He had reasons for telling me. I am telling you because I do not, ever, want any of your captains to think this is a thing a captain can take alone."
He absorbed this.
He set his hand on the parapet.
He looked south.
He said, very quietly: "The Long Peace starts now. Everything after this is preparation."
She did not, at first, answer.
The watch-fire on the south wall guttered and recovered.
She said: "Yes."
"You have been thinking it longer than I have."
"I have been thinking it for thirty years. I had begun to think — when Lindir came in the snow — that I was thinking it too soon. I was not thinking it too soon."
"No."
"Aldric."
"Tauriel."
"There is a thing I should like to do tomorrow."
"What."
"I should like, with Halbarad if he is well, and with you, to walk the inner line of the wall and look at every post by daylight. Not for the watch. For myself. I would like to see what we have. I would like to know what it looks like, after nine years, to a person who has not, in nine years, walked it slowly."
"We will walk it tomorrow."
"Halbarad will come if he can."
"Halbarad will come."
They stood at the wall.
After a while she set her hand on the back of his on the stone, the way she had set her hand on the back of his hand on the balcony when she had named Mírelen and put it away again, and they looked south together at the road in the bracken that had not, by daylight, looked different.
⚜ ━━━━ ROYAL PROCLAMATION ━━━━ ⚜
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