[Fordim Hedgethistle]

Snaveling and Mithalwen had spent the afternoon together watching the festivities and speaking from time to time of the lands that they had travelled through. While the Elf’s knowledge was deeper, Snaveling’s was wider for he had travelled more than she, in the latter days of the world’s age at least, and he was able to tell her much of the comings and goings of the lands to the south and the north. For her part, the Elf told Snaveling of her realm and at his entreaties had told him more of her meeting with the Faithful after their arrival upon the winds of storm and ruin. Several times during her narrative Mithalwen paused and looked at Snaveling as though expecting him to speak of his own interest in these histories, but the more the Man heard the more he became reluctant to speak of his identity, for the Elf’s admiration of those who came with Elendil was such that he felt sure she would not relish of the truth of Snaveling’s ancestry. Mithalwen could sense his reluctance and did not press, but both knew that a time would come when he would answer her unspoken enquiries.

Afternoon gave way to evening and the shadows grew about them both. The night came down, isolating the party-goers who remained into smaller groups about the lights that were brought out to the yard. Some people began to move inside the Inn, and Mithalwen asked if Snaveling wished to go in as well, but the thought of seeing Aman kept the Man outdoors, and Mithalwen stayed with him. They sat in silence for a time before the Elf turned her ageless eyes upon him and said directly, “You are avoiding the Innkeeper.”

“Yes,” Snaveling replied. “I do not do so from reluctance or dislike, but from cowardice. There is a conversation that I must have with the girl, and it is one that I fear will cause her pain and me…discomfort. I should not say more, however, until I have spoken with her. I owe her a great debt of gratitude.”

“You have alluded to such things this day, Tar-Corondir, and to a number of other such mysteries. I would know what it is that you have kept silent. I do not wish to make you break your secrets to me, and I would not ask if I did not see already that you are willing to lay most – if not all – of your story before me.”

Snaveling sighed. At last, it seemed, the moment had come. He looked away from the disturbingly open eyes of the Elf and gazed instead into the black heart of a torch’s flame. He stayed that way for a long time, and she was content to let him remain that way. When he did speak he did so as though in part to himself. “Twice before I have been to this Inn, but it was the first visit that has determined the course of my life. When I arrived I was but a vagabond and a rogue. I committed such crimes as I am ashamed to speak of now. I have been counselled by folk of greater wisdom to let the past remain in the past, so I shall not horrify you with a detailed account of my crimes, but they reached even to the highest: robbery, treachery…even attempted murder. The folk here quickly realised who and what I was, but rather than sending me forth into the world an outcast and a criminal, they took me in and tried to help me, even in the extremity of my distress.” As he spoke the faces of his friends returned to his mind’s eye: Tobias, Galadel, Aman…Roa. He felt Mithalwen’s eyes upon him as he thought of the Ranger woman, and so he answered her wordless question. “One of them, who had the greatest cause against me, showed me justice and mercy, and for that I gave to her my eternal gratitude and fidelity. I shall not bore you with the story of unrequited affection, but because of how I feel for her, she fled Minas Tirith, where we had travelled together so that I might receive judgement from her King. I have come north to seek for her.”

Snaveling fell silent, but Mithalwen said. “You have not told me all. You speak of who you were and why you are here, but you do not say who you are, or what you have become.”

“No, lady, for I fear what you might think of me when you learn the truth. I have already told you that I am of Numenor, but that I cannot account myself among the Dunedain, by whom I mean those who came to Middle-earth with Elendil and his sons. My ancestry is from an altogether different line.” He paused before the plunge. “When I first came to this place I was ignorant of my heritage, but by tokens that I had with me at the time, my friends were able to determine my descent. I have since spent much time with the lore masters of Gondor and they have been able to search out the full truth of my tale. Before the destruction of Numenor, the King sent his nephew to oversee those lands to the south of Gondor that still owed direct allegiance to the Numenorean crown. He was in these lands when his uncle sailed into the West, ensuring the destruction of his realm. The nephew, now the king of a vanished realm, sought refuge with his companions among the simple folk who live between the White Mountains and the Sea. There, they hid from the Faithful and plotted for the day when they could reclaim their sovereignty. But they soon dwindled, and their hopes were lost. Long the line went quiet, and all tokens and even memory of their greatness and of their aspirations were lost. But among some of my people there remained heirlooms of that time, and for some, the blood of Numenor ran true. I am one such person, for I stand in direct descent from the king’s nephew, and by some trick of fate or circumstance, in me is reborn the likeness of that nephew. His name was Tar-Corondir, and it is for him that I was named, though I knew it not, for the ancient language of my people was so broken and debased that the name I am known by – Snaveling – is but an echo of my great progenitor’s.” He turned to look at Mithalwen, as though to gauge her reaction to what he said next. “You see then, lady, why I feared telling you all the truth about me, for I am the last king of now-vanished Numenor, and therefore I am chief among those now called the Black Numenoreans, who allied themselves to Sauron in the Dark Days, and from whose ranks the Dark Lord found his most terrible servants.”