Chapter 14
Checking his sigh, Faramir continued sponging Teleziel’s body. The Haradrim’s eyes were sunken and the skin around them bruised looking. “Whatever happens, Mablung, is not his fault. My father always said I was too soft.”
“No disrespect, captain, but your father doesn’t understand your better traits. I’ll go get some fresh blankets.”
“Put a cot in my quarters.”
Mablung paused with his mouth open, as if preparing his argument. Changing his mind, he only said “yes, sir” as he left.
“Do you still feel alive, Teleziel? In control?” Faramir asked as he smoothed his hand over the Haradrim’s foot and up his leg. The fine hairs were soft. Teleziel did not respond as Faramir stroked him and talked quietly. “I have not taken you to my father from pity, but from the desire to keep you for myself. Is it your beauty? You are truly beautiful. I’ve seen Haradrim before, but somehow you are different. You look like all the others. Your olive skin is no less smooth than theirs. Your dark hair is no less glossy. So why are you different? What is it about you that makes my heart constrict and encourages me to defy my father, my orders? Why is it when I look into those liquid eyes I only want to hold you?” Someone cleared their throat and Faramir stammered to a stop.
“I’ve brought a wine posset captain.”
“Don’t know how we’ll get him to take it.”
“Trust me, captain. I learned this from my grandmother, and she could get a corpse---Forgive me.”
Faramir sat back and motioned Damrod closer. “Go ahead, work your grandmother’s magic.”
The Ranger moved forward and knelt beside Faramir. “Hold this, please.”
Faramir took the cup and sniffed it cautiously. “The wine to strengthen him and some herbs to break the fever,” Damrod supplied as he tilted Teleziel’s head back and pried open the slack jaws. He placed one hand lightly against the Haradrim's nose and then reached out and retrieved the cup from Faramir. Quickly, he clamped down so that Teleziel couldn’t breath through his nose and poured about half the goblet of wine into the open mouth. Teleziel choked and coughed and some of the wine trickled from his mouth even as Damrod moved his hand to allow the younger man to breathe. “Come, on, Teleziel. Swallow.” He held Teleziel’s jaw closed and watched as the throat muscles flexed. “Good. Good. A little more, now.” He cajoled and soothed as he repeated her earlier performance. When all the wine was gone, he let go of the Haradrim. “He may need more later.”
“I think he really meant to kill himself.”
“He still may succeed, captain.”
“I know.”
“We should probably get him out,” Damrod changed the subject.
“I asked Mablung to set up a cot in my quarters. I’ll see if it’s done.”
Damrod patted Faramir’s shoulder. “Let me.”
No sooner had the Ranger departed than Teleziel began to shiver. Faramir took his hand and squeezed it.
Teleziel's’ eyes opened and he stared around. “I’m cold.”
“I know. We’ll get you out of here in a moment.” Faramir wondered how much the Haradrim understood.
“Please don’t let me die,” he said softly.
“I won’t,” Faramir promised.
Teleziel muttered in the rhythms of his mother tongue for a moment and then lapsed into silence. Faramir continued to hold his hand until Damrod and Mablung came to help him move the Haradrim.
*~*
Sometimes the desert winds blew hotly across his skin, scorching him to his bones. Other times, the cold was so intense, he thought his frozen body must surely break into a thousand brittle fragments. Voices filled his head, some familiar, some frightening. Hands touched him, but he only knew it from a distance, as if his body wasn’t his own. Once, Imiro leaned over him and whispered sweetly in his ear. He spat and his old love departed and did not return. He tried to ask for Captain Faramir, but his tongue was thick and fuzzy and his throat tight. The words formed in his mind, but he could not form them with his lips. Frustration caused him to whimper and someone placed something foul in his mouth. He tried to push it out, but they thrust harder, hurting him. He gagged and tried to run away. But they pinioned his arms and legs and spread him open. But for the obstruction in his mouth, he would have begged them not to hurt him any more.
Faramir leaned all his weight on Teleziel’s shoulders to hold him steady as Damrod used a wooden spoon to force his jaws open. For three days, they’d poured wine possets down his throat, forcing the medicines into his resisting body by every means they could think of. The spoon was Mablung’s idea.
“Teleziel, don’t struggle.” Faramir said as
he tried to get a grip on the sweaty shoulders.
Already, the Haradrim had lost weight and his ribs and hipbones stood out against
the yellow-gray of his parchment-like skin.
More posset saturated the blankets than actually made into Teleziel and Damrod sighed irritably. “Captain, if we don’t get his fever to break soon, we’ll lose him.”
Faramir tried to keep his face neutral, but his heart skipped several beats.
“Maybe gruel instead of wine would be better,” offered Mablung. He didn’t like the Haradrim more, but he didn’t want Faramir to hurt, either, so he chose a careful middle ground. He was amazed that one so weak and feverish still offered so much resistance and he pressed down harder on the thin thighs.
“No,” Damrod answered. “I’m afraid we’re going to have to wait and watch from now on. I’m sorry, captain.”
“You’ve done all you can, Damrod. Why don’t you two get some rest?”
Damrod and Mablung exchanged glances. “The dispatches from Minas Tirith, captain.” Damrod tried to be diplomatic, but their orders weighed on his mind.
“I haven’t forgotten,” Faramir said as he rose to his feet.
Damrod and Mablung left, giving Faramir a measure of peace with their departure. He hated the pitying expressions on their faces. He didn’t want to see the looks they exchanged, as if they thought him to fragile to cope with their opinions. He knew what everyone thought. They thought him weak. They thought him a fool. And, in truth, maybe he was. But he couldn’t stop his heart, no matter how bitterly and sternly he spoke to it. Sympathy and concern, and yes, he admitted it, even sexual desire blended and merged until he was no longer capable of performing his duties. When did that happen?
Scooping Teleziel in his arms, Faramir straddled the small cot and laid the limp figure against his chest. To defy orders, to place his nation in jeopardy was madness. Why didn’t he kill the Haradrim and be done with it?
“Because I cannot kill a wounded man in cold blood,” he said softly into Teleziel’s unresponsive ear. “I know the difference between an enemy on the battlefield and a man, broken and defeated, begging for mercy. Yet, would killing you not be a mercy?” Automatically, his hand moved to the hilt of his knife—the same one he’d left with Teleziel—now cleaned of all traces of the Haradrim’s blood. “You’ve known this weapon before. It has tasted your flesh, your blood. You are my enemy. You are Haradrim. I should not hold you in my arms, I should not ask my men to suffer for you. Your actions have delayed my returning to Osgiliath. How long will I wait? Until my people are dead?”
Faramir drew the knife from its sheath and turned it over slowly, as if mesmerized by the glint of the blade. He placed the edge beneath Teleziel’s chin and pressed until a faint, red line appeared.
“Whatever has touched you, Teleziel of the Haradrim, has touched me, as well. Is it your fragility that attracts me? Or the defiance with which you have faced me? Perhaps it is your quiet strength. And strong you are, Haradrim. You have defied not only me, but your people. You live when they tried their utmost to destroy you. You are truly beautiful and I long to possess that beauty; to caress you and bring you to me in a bond that will erase your past and my future. And I cannot. For, even should I decide to keep you, allow you to live, I doubt much that either of us shall live much longer. The last of your people lie hidden safely behind the Black Gates; we were too few to stop them. Soon, they will march with the hosts of Mordor and Gondor has not the strength to repel them. We will fall.” His hand trembled and sweat dripped from his forehead to Teleziel’s cheek, like a single teardrop. The knife hilt burned his palm and his stomach clenched. “I cannot.”
Faramir flung the knife away and it clattered against the wall.