The Treason of Isengard (71 page)

'to watch the River and gather tidings: Gwaihir had told him of the captivity of Merry and Pippin.(14) Against the suggestion here that the eagle was carrying Gandalf from Tol Brandir 'where he resisted the Eye and saved Frodo' my father wrote w o in large letters; cf. TT p. 99:

'I sat in a high place, and I strove with the Dark Tower; and the Shadow passed.' Nonetheless he preserved the new text.

In TT (pp. 25 - 6) the three companions followed the Orc-trail north along the escarpment to the ravine where a path descended like a stair, and followed the trail down into the plain. In the present text the story is different:

...a rough path descended like a broad steep stair into the plain. At the top of the ravine Aragorn stopped. There was a shallow pool like a great basin, over the worn lip of which the water spilled: lying at the edge of the basin something glistening caught his eye. He lifted it out and held it up in the light. It looked like the new-opened leaf of a beech-tree, fair and untimely in the winter morning.

'The brooch of an elven-cloak!' cried Legolas and Gimli together, and each with his hand felt for the clasp at his own throat; but none of their brooches were missing.

'Not lightly do the leaves of Lorien fall,' said Aragorn solemnly. 'This clasp did not betray its owner, nor stray by chance. It was cast away: maybe to mark the point where the captors turned from the hills.'

'It may have been stolen by an orc and dropped,' said Gimli.

'True enough,' said Legolas, 'but even so it tells us that one at least of our Company was carried off as Boromir said.'

'It may tell no more than that one of our Company was plundered,' answered Gimli.

Aragorn turned the brooch over. The underside of the leaf Was of silver. 'It is freshly marked,' he said. 'With some pin or Sharp point it has been scored.(15) See! A hand has scratched on it (...).'

The others looked at the faint letters eagerly. 'They were both alive then so far, said Gimli. That is heartening. We do not pursue in vain. And one at least had a hand free: that is strange and perhaps hopeful.'

'But the Ringbearer was not here,' said Aragorn. 'At least so we may guess. If I have learned anything of these strange hobbits, I would swear that otherwise either Merry or Pippin would have put F first, and F alone if time allowed no more. But the choice is made. We cannot turn back.'

The three companions climbed down the ravine. At its foot they came with a strange suddenness upon the grass of Rohan.

I think that it was here, arising out of this moment in the narrative, that the leaf-brooches of Lorien were conceived; they were then written into the fair copy manuscript of 'Farewell to Lorien' (p. 285).

But it is strange that Aragorn should speak as though the brooch was at last a clear if not altogether final evidence that Frodo was not a captive of the Orcs, for in drafting for 'The Departure of Boromir' (p.

386) he had said: 'One thing at least is clear. Frodo is no longer on this side of the River. Only he could or would have taken the boat'; and that he should feel that this evidence called for some reinforcement of the decision to pursue the Orcs. - The postponement of the discovery of Pippin's brooch to its place in TT (p. 26) was introduced not long afterwards in a rider; see p. 408.

The entire account in TT from the debate at nightfall of the first day in the plains of Rohan (27 February: the second day of the chase) to their setting off again on the following morning (pp. 27 - 9) is lacking here. The text reads thus:

... No longer could any sight of them be seen in the level plains.

When night was already far advanced the hunters rested for a while, somewhat less than three hours. Then again they went on, all the next day with scarcely a pause. Often they thanked the folk of Lorien for the gift of lembas; for they could eat and find new strength even as they ran.

As the third day [i.e. of the chase] wore on they came to long treeless slopes, where the ground was harder and drier and the grass shorter: the land rose, now sinking now swelling up,, towards a line of low, smooth downs ahead. To their left the river Entwash wound, a silver thread in the green floor. The dwellings of the Rohiroth were for the most part far away

[south >] to the west (16) across the river, under the wooded eaves of the Black Mountains, which were now hidden in mist and cloud. Yet Aragorn wondered often that they saw no sign of beast or man, for the Horsemasters had formerly kept many studs and herds in this eastern region (Eastemnet),(17) and wandered much, living often in camp or tent, even in the winter-time. But all the land was now empty, and there was a silence upon it that did not seem to be the quiet of peace.

Through the wide solitude the hunters passed. Their elven-cloaks faded against the background of the green fields...

It is at this point that the original text A emerges (p. 391). The new version B, still replacing it but no longer destroying it, advances far towards the final text, and for long stretches is almost identical. The original time-scheme, as set out on p. 394, was retained: the three companions still came to the downs at the end of the third day of the chase (i.e. the second day in the plains of Rohan); Aragorn still asserted that the tracks which they found there had been made that day; and they still went on far into the night, not stopping until they were halfway along the downs, where they found the orc-encampment. In this version, in fact, the Orcs were less far ahead than they were in A: ' "They halted here in the early evening, I guess," said Aragorn.' It was at this point that Aragorn lay on the ground for a long time motionless (cf. TT pp. 28 - 9; but here it was by moonlight, in the night following 'Day 3' of the chase, not at dawn of 'Day 3' and gill far east of the downs).

'The rumour of the earth is dim and confused,' he said. 'Many

' feet I heard, far away; but it seemed to me also that there were horses, horses galloping, and yet all were going away from us.

I wonder what is happening in this land. All seems strange. I distrust the very moonlight. Only the stars are left to steer by, and they are faint and far away. I am weary, as a Ranger should never be on a fresh trail; yet we must go on, we must go on.'

In this version they seem not to have slept at all that night: 'when dawn came they had almost reached the end of the downs'; and 'as the sun rose upon the fourth day of the pursuit, and the light grew, they climbed the last height, a rounded hill standing alone at the north end of the downs - where in TT (p. 31) they spent the night of the fourth day.(18)

The coming of the Rohiroth now reaches the text of TT,(19) and the only difference to mention is that Legolas, seeing them far away, said:

'There are one hundred save three'; this almost certainly indicates, I think, that three Riders had been lost from an eored of 100 horse. But

'one hundred save three' was changed to 'one hundred and five' before the end of the chapter was reached, for Eomer subsequently tells Aragorn that they had lost fifteen men in the battle. (On the constitution of an eored see Unfinished Tales p. 315.) The first part of Aragorn's conversation with Eomer in B is actually a third version, for it is written over erased pencil drafting, as far as the Point where Gimli explains to Eomer the meaning of the word

'hobbits' (TT p. 37); and here the final form is reached apart from one or two details: Branding as the name of Aragorn's sword, Masters for Marshals of the Mark. It is here that Theoden son of Thengel first appears: if some other names preceded these they are lost in the underlying erased text. Theoden is not here called 'King', but 'the First Master'.

For the next portion of the chapter there is some extremely rough drafting, scarcely more than notes, preliminary to the writing of B. In these my father did not see Gandalf as a well-known figure in Rohan, and he still thought that there was another troop of Riders in that region (detached from Eomer's host?):

The old man who said he had escaped from Orthanc on an eagle!

And demanded a horse and got it! Some said he was a wizard. And Shadowfax... [?came back] only a day ago.

Eomer says some orcs fled towards Wold. Aragorn may meet other Riders: Marhath the Fourth Master [see p. 390] is there with a few men. Aragorn wishes to go on. Eomer gives him token to show Marhath. Aragorn pledges his word to return to Theoden and vindicate Eomer. Farewell.

In the part of the B-text developed from these notes the hobbits are called the 'Half-high', not as in TT the 'Halflings': in Gimli's reference to 'the words that troubled Minas Tirith' he says 'They spoke of the Half-high', as in the form of the verse in the fifth version of 'The Council of Elrond (p. 146).(20) Aragorn s reply to the scoffing question of Eothain 'Are we walking in legends or on the green earth under the daylight?' here takes the form: 'One may do both; and the latter is not always the safer' (added to the manuscript: 'But the green earth is a legend seen under the light of day'). Eomer's remarks about Gandalf, which were achieved in this form through a mass of small changes, now read thus:

'Gandalf?' said Eomer. 'We have heard of him. An old man of that name used to appear at times in our land. None knew whence he came or where he went. His coming was ever the herald of strange events. Indeed since his last coming all things have gone amiss. Our trouble with Saruman began from that.

time. Until then we had counted Saruman our friend, but Gandalf said that evil was afoot in Isengard. Indeed he declared that he had been a prisoner in Orthanc and had escaped. Riding on an eagle! Nonetheless he asked us for a horse! What arts he used I cannot guess, but Theoden gave him one of the mearas: the steeds that only the First Master of the Mark may ride; for it is said that [they are descended from the horses which the Men of Westernesse brought over the Great Seas >] their sires came out of the Lost Land over the Great Sea when the Kings of Men came out of the Deeps to Gondor. Shadowfax was the name of that horse. We wondered if evil had befallen the old man; for seven nights ago Shadowfax returned.'(21)

'But Gandalf left Shadowfax far in the North at Rivendell,'

said Aragorn. 'Or so I thought.(22) But, alas, however that may be, Gandalf is gone down into the shadows.' Aragorn now told briefly the story of their journey from Moria. To his account of Lorien Eomer listened with amazement. At last Aragorn spoke of the assault of the orcs on Calen-bel, and the fall of Boromir.

Only shortly before in this text the name was still Ondor. In view of the fact that it is Ondor in the draft and fair copy of 'Treebeard', it may be that the alteration of the sentence about the mearas, in which the form Gondor appears, was made later. On the actual date of the change Ondor ) Gondor see p. 423.

In the remainder of the conversation with Eomer there are only these differences from the text of TT (pp. 38-41) to notice. There is no suggestion yet of Wormtongue: Eomer does not speak of 'some, close to the king's ear, that speak craven counsels'. He says that there has been war with Saruman 'since the summer' ('for many months', TT); and he remarks of Saruman himself that 'He walks about like an old man, indeed there are some that say Gandalf was only old Saruman in disguise: certainly they are much alike to look on.'(23) In his account of his own present expedition Eomer does not refer to his going without Theoden's leave:

'... I do not know how it all will end. There is battle even now away upon the Westemnet under the shadow of Isengard.

Hardly could we be spared. But scouts warned us [> Theoden]

of the orc-host coming down out of the East Wall three nights ago: among them they reported some that bore the badges of Saruman. We overtook them yesterday at nightfall, only a little way from the edges of the Forest. We surrounded them, and gave battle at dawn. We lost fifteen of my eored and twelve horses, alas!'

On the chronology see the Note on Chronology at the end of this chapter. Eomer tells of the Orcs that came in from the East across the Great River, and the Isengard Orcs that came out of the Forest. The story of the finding of Pippin's brooch was still in its former place (p.

397), as is seen from Aragorn's words here: 'Yet our friends are not behind. We had a clear token that they were with the Orcs when they descended into the plain.'(24)

At the end of the conversation Eomer says:

'... But it is hard to be sure of anything among so many marvels.

One may pardon Eothain, my squire. The world is all turned strange. Old men upon eagles; and raiment that deceives the eye; and Elves with bows, and folk that have spoken with the Lady of the Wood, and yet live; and the Sword comes back to war that was broken ere the Fathers of the Fathers rode into the Mark! How shall a man judge what to do in such times. It is against our law to let strangers wander free in our land, and doubly so at this time of peril. I beg you to come back honourably with me, and you will not.'