Chapter 16
Teleziel lay back on the cot and stared silently at the ceiling, wondering what to do now. To go to Gondor to face Faramir’s father, the Steward, left him feeling cold inside. He had not the strength to defy Faramir and refuse to travel. He lacked the courage to remain behind and risk facing his own people. Scalding tears blurred his vision and spilled from the corner of his eyes. He felt his lower lip tremble and fought to control his body. The one time he needed self-control and he could muster none, he mused in silent anger.
“Why do you weep?”
Teleziel squeezed his eyes closed. He did not want to look up and see Mablung’s cold, expressionless eyes focused on him.
Mablung hesitated a moment longer and then stepped through the doorway, balancing a hot bowl of soup in his palms. “The captain sent this for you. Shall I help you sit up?”
“I’ll manage,” Teleziel said hoarsely as he scrubbed fitfully at his face, trying to remove the tell-tale tears. He rolled on to his side and after a few moments, managed to pull himself up right and sat, slumped, in the center of the cot, staring numbly at the bowl of steaming broth that rested between his bent knees.
“Damrod made it,” Mablung settled a wooden spoon into the broth. “I have no idea what he made it from, but he said you’d eat it because he only used herbs and vegetables.”
Teleziel picked up the spoon and swirled it around in the liquid. “You will tell him thank you for me?”
Taken aback, Damrod nodded briskly, as if afraid the simple courtesy would make him a traitor. He stood awkwardly watching as the prisoner raised the spoon to his mouth with shaking hands and spilled as much as he ate. Staring at the Haradrim, he tried to see him through Damrod’s eyes. The hair, now cropped impossibly short with patches of bleeding scalp showing, was still lustrous, despite his illness. The fine bones of his face were delicate, but not feminine. He was thin because of misuse and illness, but with good food his muscles would fill out again. In all, thought Mablung, Teleziel was a handsome fellow. But he was also the enemy. How to reconcile the two?
Then he looked at the Haradrim through Faramir’s eyes. He recognized the beauty beneath the partially healed bruises and sallow skin. The fierce, dark eyes held the promise of pride, now battered and beaten, but still discernable if one looked closely enough. Was it merely loneliness that drew Faramir to the enemy? Or was there something more?
After watching Teleziel spill more of the soup, Mablung released an exasperated sigh. “Here.” He squatted down close to the prisoner and roughly took the spoon from the thin hands. When Teleziel jerked and flinched, he stopped moving. “You’ll never get any food in you this way,” he said gently, trying to find the sympathy that Damrod insisted the boy—no man—deserved. He swallowed his revulsion and slipped one arm around Teleziel’s shoulders and held the spoon to the cracked lips.
The broth was good, and Teleziel detected wild thyme and wine and other herbs. The liquid warmed his insides and filled the hollow ache in his belly. It did nothing for the hollowness of his soul.
Damrod walked in and stopped dead still in wonder as he watched Mablung feed Teleziel careful spoons of the nourishing broth. There were, he thought, miracles after all. He glanced down at the heavy basin of water and thought about retreating, but then changed his mind. His patient needed fresh bandages and a bit of a wash might make him feel more human. It would certainly make him smell human. “When you’ve finished, I’ve brought clean bandages.”
Teleziel did not raise his eyes, but Mablung glanced up. He scowled at Damrod’s raised brows and then returned to feeding Teleziel. “He was spilling it all.”
“I’m sure.” Damrod placed the basin aside and sat on the edge of the bed. He saw the traces of tears and the spiked lashes and wondered what had made the Haradrim cry. Was it Mablung’s brusqueness? He glanced at his lover and resisted the urge to smile. Only his drawn sword could make the prisoner cry. No, the Haradrim was much tougher than all that, despite contrary evidence. Faramir? That held possibilities, thought Damrod. When the captain awakened him with news that Teleziel was conscious, he’d seemed out of sorts and distracted. The request to take care of the Haradrim, too, was strange since Faramir had refused all previous offers. So what had happened?
*~*
Faramir balanced on the balls of his feet and stared at the water cascading over the sacred falls. The spray splashed over his face and clear droplets sparkled in his hair and beard, and dampened his clothing. His eyes remained clouded with thought as emotions swirled endlessly like the waters of the sacred pool far below his perch. All around him, men moved in the gloom, but he heard nothing. His eyes, too, seemed to look beyond the water to some deeper place only he knew of.
“Would I love you if you weren’t Haradrim?” Faramir whispered to the wind and the water. “I love you even so.” He swallowed the lump in his throat. Impossible, his mind screamed. He couldn’t love a Haradrim. He shouldn’t love the enemy. Certainly, he shouldn’t feel anything—not even the most remote attraction—for the broken creature lying on a cot in his room. “But I do.”
Every day Haradrim troops moved closer to his home and here he sat, perched on a ledge contemplating the love of one. The enemy. His prisoner. “Who has imprisoned whom? I hold your body, your life, Teleziel, but you hold my heart.” His soft voice was drowned by the roar of the falls and only his ears heard his conversation.
“You are the servant of my enemy,” Faramir growled at the water. “I should not love you. I do not love you.” He placed his head in his hands. “Boromir would know what to do, but I do not. He never faltered, yet I do. Why is that?”
The water did not answer him as it rolled and jostled over the stones. It was too busy to hear a single human, alone in his misery, on its way to join with the sea.
*~*
Teleziel leaned heavily against Mablung as Damrod guided his foot into the legs of new trousers. He felt his face color scarlet as the Ranger hoisted the paints up over his scarred thighs and then around his waist. Expert hands tucked and patted and laced everything snuggly into place while Mablung remained rigid and Teleziel stared at a spot on the wall.
“Two days from now, I will be on my way to Gondor.”
Damrod’s eyes flickered angrily to Mablung, who shrugged. “The captain told you?”
Teleziel lowered his eyes so that they met Damrod’s. “I can wait for my people to over run your position or I can …travel by litter to the White City.”
Damrod pursed his lips in silent contemplation. What decisions had his captain made? What had they cost him? “We are hard pressed, but I suppose you knew that.”
“The orc captains claimed that you could not hold out against our combined forces. I think they underestimate their enemy.” Teleziel moved slightly so that he could lower himself to the cot. “The Haradrim are fierce, but no more so when they believe they face an easy victory. They are cruel, too, in war. They will spare no one. Do you understand? They will slaughter every one who comes into contact with them. They have no need to take prisoners. Maybe they will allow the young women to live, if they do not allow their blood lust to over come them. But the orcs, they will spur my people on.”
“The Haradrim take orders from orcs?” Mablung couldn’t stop the sneer spreading across his face nor keep it from coming through in his words.
“The orcs promise riches they say that Gondor hoards. That is why many of my people come. They come for old hatreds, but they mostly come for the riches that the men of the west possess. They will stop at nothing. Beware, too, the behemoths. On their backs will the archers travel. Their bows are short, but they will pierce armor easily from the heights.”
“You’ve decided to help us, then?” Damrod piled the dirty linen on the floor before tossing a fresh blanket on the cot.
“I never said I would not,” said Teleziel. “I only said I doubted I had anything to say that you didn’t know.”
“And even now, you haven’t really told us anything,” Mablung said gruffly.
“I can only tell you what I know. It is the truth, and it is the only thing with which to bargain that remains to me.”
Mablung rummaged for his pipe, realized he did not have it and muttered a curse before striding to the door. Ripping aside the curtain, he came face to face with Faramir.
“Captain, the prisoner has been—“
“Leave us, Mablung, Damrod,” Faramir said as he moved into the room. “Please.”
“Why did you tell them those things?” Faramir asked as soon as his
men vacated the room.
“I wanted them to know what they would face,” Teleziel began.
“Do you think we are fools? We have studied your people for many years.” Faramir paced around the cot, trying to decide why he was so angry. “Do you wish to bargain now, Teleziel? What will you trade for your life? Your honor? Your body?”
“No,” the dark eyes blazed even as a red blush spread across Teleziel’s cheeks. “You and your men have shown me many kindnesses and I only wished to repay them.”
The anger drained from Faramir and he sank wearily to the edge of his own cot and leaned so that his back pressed against the rock wall. “How do you feel?”
“Tired. Frightened.”
“Me, too,” Faramir smiled and the lines around his eyes crinkled.
Teleziel’s heart nearly missed a beat when the deep eyes lit with inner light. He’d never really seen Faramir smile, save for the rare grimaces that flitted across his features. His mouth went dry as he realized how much he longed to kiss the wide mouth and feel the tickling of the mustache against his own lips. He looked down at his hands and the familiar urge to feel a knife in his hand crept up on him, but he pushed it aside. No more, he said to himself, as he clenched his fists.
“Even the illness has not taken away those strange habits,” observed Faramir thoughtfully. “I wonder what will?”
“Death, maybe. Love? Who can say?”
Faramir sat up abruptly and leaned forward until his knees touched Teleziel’s. He placed his hands on either side of Teleziel and stared for a long moment into the liquid ink of his eyes. “What will you give me to remain free?”
“Nothing.”
Faramir’s pale brow arched slowly and his lips twisted slightly. “Nothing at all? Not your love or your body? No promises of fidelity?”
“You would not take them even should I offer,” said Teleziel with far more certainty than he actually felt. “Your honor will not allow it. You will fight with yourself and wonder which path is correct and in the end, you will do what duty commands. Nothing I say or do will change that.”
Backing away a scant inch, Faramir studied Teleziel and wondered whence came the tensile strength. Bend he might, but Faramir wondered if he would ever break. Others had tried, and nearly succeeded. But something kept the Haradrim whole. It went beyond the knife against his skin or the sudden urge to live. The planes of his face showed the hardships of the past weeks, but they showed character and strength as well.
“Can you be ready to fight in two weeks?”
Teleziel studied Faramir and wondered if this was a trap. “Yes, I will be ready.”
Faramir glanced down at their touching knees. When had he made that decision? There remained but one more thing to do. Lifting his head again, he stared deeply into Teleziel’s eyes, searching to the depths of the Haradrim’s soul for a sign of treachery. After a moment, he glanced away, staring longingly at the soft mouth. He longed to taste the lips so close to his, but his fear held him back. Teleziel admitted the cruelty and zealousness of his people. How far would they go to be free?
“Will you let me?”
Faramir stared at the lips as they moved, forming and shaping the words. “Yes, you may fight, Teleziel.”
Teleziel licked his lips. “I will not betray you.”
“I hope not,” Faramir replied, still staring at Teleziel’s mouth.
Lowering his head, Teleziel touched his forehead to Faramir’s. “You have shown me mercy and kindness when others would have killed me. I cannot betray that.” He couldn’t believe his own foolishness and tried to pull away.
“Don’t,” Faramir clasped Teleziel’s head gently in his hands and held the Haradrim steady so that their heads remained touching.
The Haradrim felt Faramir’s hands tremble and the warm breath fan over his jaw. He gathered his courage and hope that this time, for once, things would be different. “If I were not Haradrim, would you love me?” He repeated his earlier question.
Faramir wetted his lips and closed his eyes tightly. He couldn’t. He shouldn’t. But he did and nothing he told himself changed a thing. He couldn’t make his heart behave and if he were betrayed for it, his people would pay. But what could he do?
Teleziel held his breath and waited for the cruel laugher, the rough hands pulling him to the ground and stripping him. He waited stiffly for the punishment that surely must come. He squeezed his eyes shut and clenched his teeth.
Watching Teleziel, Faramir saw how much the simple question cost. So much pain had already been inflicted upon the Haradrim. “Teleziel, we—our people are at war. I may not…this is an impossible situation.”
“I would fight by your side, if you would allow it. You do not have to love me,” Teleziel’s whisper was so soft that Faramir had to strain to hear it, even as close as they were. “It is enough to love you and serve you.” He slid forward, lowering his body to the ground so that he knelt between Faramir knees. “I will swear to serve you, if that is what you want.”
Running his hands over Teleziel’s scalp, Faramir felt
the stubble and scabs. He could have wept for the beautiful locks now littering
the cave floor. He’d not been able to bear having them swept up and disposed
of, so had left them. It was only hair. He kissed the top of Teleziel’s
head. When Teleziel lifted his face, Faramir kissed his smooth brow and then
his tear-stained cheeks. At last, he settled his lips against Teleziel’s
mouth.