[piosenniel]

Epilog

Year 20 of the Fourth Age

Throughout the years of his reign, King Elessar sent emissaries out to the outlying countries of Arda to extend the hand of friendship and the offer of peaceful relations with the Reunited Kingdom. It was on one such mission that Giladan, Errand Rider of Gondor, found himself, after many months of travel - coming into the outskirts of a small tented village in the Hither Lands, near a large bay along the Inner Seas.


‘Paw-paw! Look who we’ve found!’ ‘He’s come at last!’

It was early morning. The pale light of dawn just brightening the eastern rim of the sea. Nasr sat wrapped in his shawl near the fire. Fifty-seven years had not dimmed the light and kindness in his aging eyes. His dark hair had turned now a grizzled grey, and he sat close to the heat of the fire, warming his bones against the chill of the new day. Qamar sat near him, Naar at her side. The women were sorting through their stock of herbs, grey head leaning close to one with tight black curls shot through with silver, talking of what they would need when next the Painted Sands came through.

Nasr looked north, toward the source of the piping voices. There, in the distance, were his five year old twin great-grandchildren – Meelah and her brother, hanging onto the hand and cloak of a tall, fair man with dark shoulder length hair. He could see the man grinning as he listened to the chatter of the children. His great horse, walking carefully behind him, kept an eye out to the darting and weaving of the children as they danced and skipped at times about his rider’s leg and at times paused to hold his hand or grasp his cloak. ‘Little butterflies, they are,’ thought Giladan as he laughed with them.

Naar stood, giving a hand up to her mother. Her father waved her off, grumbling good naturedly as always that he could do it himself. The man and children drew near, and Nasr stepped forward to give a word of greeting.

Giladan listened courteously as he was welcomed, then pushing back his cloak behind his shoulders he began to greet them in kind and tell them of his mission. There was a collective gasp as he did so, bringing his formal announcement from the King to an abrupt halt. A look of puzzlement crept on his face as they pointed to the insignia he wore on his tunic – the White Tree, reminding them of their own Baobab they murmured, crowned with seven five-pointed stars . . . then, the questions began . . .

Had the Shadow gone now from the North? Was the Eye defeated? Who had done this? Was it the man of the five-pointed star? And more tumbled out in rapid succession. Giladan held up his hands, begging for respite. ‘How do you know all this,’ he asked, amazed at their questioning and surprised most by the fact that they seem to have expected him.

It was Qamar who answered him, speaking of their own battle against the darkness, and how they had prevailed, and then withdrawn for this long time now from the outreaching hand of the Shadow. At her words, Nasr’s eyes grew clouded remembering those who had fallen on the battlefield.

‘Tell her the story,’ piped in the little twins, urging their grandmother on. ‘Tell her about your Mami.’

‘Yes,’ urged Giladan, bidding them all be seated, as he took a place close to them, attentive to their words. Qamar looked at Nasr, and he gestured at her, saying, ‘Yes, tell him.’ She spoke quietly of her mother, speaking without embroidery about her life, about the sort of woman she was, and the signs she had seen in the bones she threw that had at first frightened her, then brought her hope. She spoke of the Man her mother had seen in the patterns she had thrown. The one who would come from the North, growing larger and stronger beneath the sign of the five-pointed star, as the pattern of the Eye grew smaller. It brought assurance to her that darkness would not prevail against the light, despite their numbers and their threats. And with this hope the tribesmen were rallied to hold their own against the Priestess and her army.

‘What happened to her?’ asked the King’s messenger, wanting to meet this woman, to let her know that her hope had not been misplaced, that Elessar, himself, bore the name of ‘Hope’ and had been victorious beneath the banner of the White Tree and Stars. The Shadow was defeated, the dark driven back until only a small remnant remained, like starving crows picking at the long gone remains of battle. Qamar did not answer him, her throat gone suddenly dry. It was little Meelah, her voice clear in the silence that had fallen, who spoke up. ‘She fought against the Eye, and she died . . . keeping us all safe.’

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Giladan spent a fortnight with the Baobab, meeting also with the Painted Sands as they passed near the village. When it was time for him to leave he was loaded down with gifts for himself and gifts for the King and His Queen. Beautiful basketry from all the clans of the tribe was packed onto his horse leaving scarce room for him to ride. He would be making his way back toward Gondor, he told them, his time of service almost complete.

Meelah accompanied him out of the village, as she had seen him in. All questions and smiles and sparkling laughter. Her eyes flashing with the bounty of her life in the bright morning of his departure. He dropped to one knee, before her as he said good-bye, his grey eyes meeting her dark brown ones.

‘It has indeed been a pleasure to have met you, m’Lady Meelah.’

Giladan rose and mounted up, turning his horse northwest, in the direction of the Great Sea. Meelah stood for a while waving at him, watching his figure shrink into the distance as she fingered the silver coin he had given her – the imprint of King Elessar on one side, the Tree and Stars on the other. ‘Come spend it in Gondor one day, little one,’ he had told her. ‘I will,’ she said, holding it high above her head, letting the sun catch its shiny surface and throw sparkles on the ground.

Hands on hips, she watched as he dipped out of site behind a low rise, a small cloud of dust the only reminder that he had passed. An afterthought, almost, she called out to him in a clear voice.

‘Meelah is the name my Paw-paw gave me. Jamílah is how you will know me in Gondor . . . Jamílah, of the Bush Lizard clan.’

Turning, she ran back toward the village and the day that stretched out before her.