After a night and a day with Tom Bombadil, Goldberry and their friends, Princess Gilraen and Sir Thoroncir take their leave to accept the earlier invitation of Thain Faramir, who had invited them to join him and his cousin in the Shire. They spend a pleasant and exceedingly well-fed week among the Hobbits. They are the center of considerable attention and the subject of many toasts.
The pair then ride north together to Annúminas, ancient seat of the High Kings of Arnor and now Elessar’s northern capital. The road is clear, the weather is autumnally crisp and their trip is uneventful but for their growing joy in each other’s company. They talk of everything and nothing at all, and the miles roll by more or less unnoticed.
Annúminas is still being rebuilt, but is well on the way to being restored to its former glory on the southern shore of broad, clear Lake Evendim. It is much smaller than Minas Tirith but no less a royal city, gleaming in the sun and bustling with life. Gilraen is recognized and welcomed by the Lord Chamberlain and guards of the elegant Summer Palace of Valandil, although the rest of her family is still to the south. The princess shares with her champion several favorite places of her childhood, in town, the gardens and in the nearby deep woods. They also call on the families of several of her noble friends. Although Thoroncir is occasionally ill-at-ease in such august circles, Gilraen takes his hand and puts him at ease with a smile. Together at dusk one night, they lay flowers on the modest grave of the princess’s namesake, and Gilraen leads Thoroncir in a prayer to Estë for the repose of her grandmother’s soul.
After just over a month, the princess and the knight-errant bid the good people of Annúminas farewell, take to horse again, and ride east to Fornost. The fortress-city is bigger than, although not quite as pleasant as, Annúminas, but they nonetheless pass a happy week there. Thoroncir accompanies the princess as she attends to several matters on her father’s behalf, and they take part in several public ceremonies with Duke Tarcil of Arthedain, the Lord Mayor and local nobility, reminding the city’s people of the King’s abiding protection and beneficence.
As Gilraen and Thoroncir begin their journey south again, they are escorted by four Ranger chieftains. In Bree, they join a large, Dwarf-led wagon caravan of both Dwarves and Men en route to Deepingburg in Rohan, where the Deeping-road meets the Great West Road. Two of the Rangers, Amlaith and Elendur, remain with them; the other two go west on other business.
Two days’ travel south of Tharbad but still north of Rohan, the caravan’s encampment is beset late one night by a band of more than seventy ferocious brigands: Dunlendings, hillmen and a few half-orcs. Sir Thoroncir and the Rangers are hard-pressed by the attack, and the knight-errant is badly hurt while successfully protecting Gilraen from several particularly skillful and well-armed orcish ruffians who made straight for her, seemingly intent on her capture. As to the other attackers, the Dwarves fight back hard with heavy crossbows, and the steel traps they earlier laid out take a deadly toll. Within half an hour the brigands are all killed but for a dozen motley and sullen prisoners, most of whom are wounded. Amlaith is lightly wounded but Elendur is killed. Gilraen exhausts herself in healing Thoroncir, and calls him back from the brink of death by at last confessing her love for him. They and the other wounded rest for several days, and the dead are buried before the wagon train moves on.
Tobbe the Fat, Dwarven leader of the caravan, suspects a traitor. When one Man is discovered missing after the attack, Tobbe asks Amlaith to find him. The Ranger makes pointed inquiries among the prisoners, and learns that one of the travelers who was along for the safety of the caravan had indeed given away its position in return for gold. Using his considerable tracking skills Amlaith soon finds, captures and returns the man, a tinker named Rolgen, from the wild. Gilraen gets the truth from Rolgen with her Know Lies ability through the ancient Rod of Kanotir, and the Dwarves are grimly pleased to clap him, along with the other prisoners, in irons of their own making.
In time the caravan reaches Deepingburg safely. Gilraen and Thoroncir, both very happy and the latter now fully healed, make their way southeast otherwise uneventfully to Minas Tirith over the next few weeks.
(Jointly written by What Exit? and Elendil’s Heir).
