Part III: Pondering in the Dark

Gandalf was awakened at midnight by Beorn, to take his turn at watch. The Goblins had been shattered at the Battle of the Five Armies, but there were still bands of them roaming the Wild, trying to make their way back to their caves in the Misty Mountains, and waylaying any unwary travellers. The band that had attacked them that evening must have been pretty desperate, to attack himself and Beorn, but desperate enemies were often the most dangerous. They might have gotten lucky, and seriously wounded or killed Bilbo, or they might have managed to make off with some of their ponies, if not for the intervention of that strange woman.

Gandalf didn’t know what to make of Faith. If anyone had asked him before tonight, he would have said that he was familiar with all of the languages spoken in Middle Earth, and fluent in most of them. He also thought that he knew all of races who populated this land. Faith, if that was indeed her name, and not the name of her race, or her word for “woman” or something like that, didn’t fit with anything that he knew.

Her clothing was strange as well. Her jacket seemed to be made of cow leather, dyed charcoal black, but its method of closure was like nothing he had ever seen before. It seemed to be held together by hundreds of interlocking metal teeth. It seemed impossible for such an arrangement to be assembled or disassembled, but a simple tab, pulled up or down, fastened or released the teeth in an instant. He would dearly like to have a closer look at it. There was an elegant simplicity to it that resembled Elvish work, but no Elf had ever made anything like that. Her trousers were baggy, with many pockets, and made of high quality cloth. The stitching of the seams was more precise than any he had ever seen before.

He pulled his pipe from his pocket, and filled it with tobacco. He used a small stick, ignited by their fire, to light it. A good smoke always helped him think. He moved a little way off from the fire, and sat on a fallen log with his back to it, so his night vision wouldn’t be impeded by its light. He sat, and he smoked, and he watched the woods while he pondered.

How could she have gotten here? She clearly had no pack, no food, no supplies of any sort. Had she been travelling with a larger group, and become separated from them? That seemed unlikely. No such group could have been travelling through this land without word of it reaching Beorn. Had she been travelling alone, and been attacked herself, and lost most of her possessions? That seemed a more likely explanation, but why would a woman be travelling through the Wild alone?

Then there was her ability as a fighter. Women warriors were rare, but not unheard of—the women of Rohan for example might not ride with their soldiers into battle, but they were trained in the use of the sword, and other weapons, so that they could defend their homes while the men were away—but in all the years that he had wandered Middle Earth, he had rarely seen anyone with the skill, or ferocity she had shown. Some of the great elf warriors might be able to match her, but he had some doubts about that.

He heard movement behind him. He knew it was her, moving in her bed. He looked back, and saw her sitting up, lacing her boots. She put on her jacket, and there was a ripping sound as she closed that marvellous fastener on the front of it. She hugged her arms around herself and shivered a bit, rubbing her hands quickly across her sleeves, until her jacket warmed up a bit. While her jacket looked warm enough, what she wore under it did not. Her shirt was made of a light weight fabric, perhaps cotton, suitable for a much warmer climate. Mist formed from her exhaled breath as she looked around, until she saw him watching her. The snow barely crunched beneath her boots as she moved toward him. She came around the log and gestured toward a spot beside him. He nodded, and shifted over a bit to make more room for her. She said something softly in her language, and sat down beside him. Her hands went into pockets in the side of her jacket and she pulled a crumpled looking box from one, and an unfamiliar device from the other. She shook a small white cylinder from the box, and placed an end of it into her mouth. A flick of her thumb on the device in her other hand produced a small flame. She touched it to the end of the cylinder, and sucked air through it. The end of the cylinder glowed brightly. She took it from her mouth, and blew out a cloud of smoke. Gandalf caught the familiar smell of tobacco, harsher than Longbottom Leaf that he preferred, but tobacco none the less.

That was another thing to puzzle him. No one smoked tobacco in Middle Earth, except for the Hobbits of the Shire, and those who knew them, but Faith couldn’t be from any of the lands surrounding the Shire.

They sat together, side by side, smoking. Gandalf noticed that she had brought her sword with her, something else that marked her as a warrior. She was never far from her weapon. He wanted to have a closer look at it, but he wasn’t sure how she would react.

He started by detaching Glamdring’s scabbard from his belt, and leaning it against the log between them, where she could reach it as easily as he. She seemed surprised by his action, until he pointed to her own scabbard. “May I see your sword?”

She looked at him for a moment, as if trying to see into his soul, to see if there was any malice there. What she saw seemed to satisfy her. She slowly drew her sword, and presented its hilt to him. He took it from her.

She snubbed out her tobacco cylinder against the log, and after a moment of thought, returned it to the box from which it had come. She pointed to Glamdring, and mimicked his question back to him. “Mayi seeur sword?”

“Yes.” Gandalf lifted Glamdring by its scabbard and presented it to her. She slowly drew the blade.

Gandalf turned his attention to her sword. The quality of the steel was excellent, not up to Elvish standards, but better than had been made by men since the fall of Númenor. The blade was heavier than he would have expected for a sword carried by someone of Faith’s stature, but he had already seen that she was much stronger than she looked. He felt for any magic that it might contain, and found none. He examined the blade closely, looking for any runes that might have been inscribed on it. Up near the hilt were some unfamiliar letters stamped into the metal, that he assumed were some sort of maker’s mark.

Faith had stood up, and moved a few paces away. She gave Glamdring a few slow practice swings, getting the feel of its weight and balance. She slowly sped up, moving into a pattern of intricate moves, as if shadow fencing with an invisible opponent. It had been many years since Gandalf had seen a fencer with such skill as this girl was exhibiting.

She was barely breathing hard when she stopped. He could see her smiling in the reddish light cast by the fire. He thought that her skin might have been flushed with excitement, but it was hard to judge, in the firelight. She came back, and presented Glamdring’s hilt to him. He took it, while returning her sword to her. They both sheathed their weapons.

“You should try to get more sleep,” he told her. She just looked puzzled, so he pointed back to her bedroll, and mimed going to sleep, holding his hands up by his head, laying his cheek against them, and closing his eyes for a moment. She said something incomprehensible, and shook her head. She sat back down on the log, got her tobacco cylinder out of its crumpled box, and lit it up again.

After a few seconds of silence, she pointed to his sword, and asked him a question. He thought it might mean “What is that?” so he answered “Sword.”

His guess seemed to be correct, for she pointed first to her own sword, and then Glamdring, saying “sword” each time. She repeated the question, pointing to a tree.

“Tree,” said Gandalf, and then he pointed to the cylinder in her mouth. “What is that?”

Faith was surprised at first, but she seemed to catch on quickly. “Cigarette,” she said, and then pulled her knife out of its sheath on her belt. “What is that?”

They spent the next few minutes with her pointing to things and asking “What is that?” and him telling her. She seemed to have a good memory. Every once in a while, she would go back over everything he had taught her, pointing to them, and saying their names. She rarely made a mistake.

When there was nothing but a stump left of her cigarette, Faith stubbed the ember at its tip out, and then seemed to consider what to do with it. After a moment she got up and went over to toss it into the coals of their fire. Gandalf added some more wood to the fire, before going back to her language lesson.