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“I have no songs for such halls,” Pippin protests; the lord Denethor only shakes his head.
“What might be unfit about it?” he asks. “Go ahead, sing for me.”
Denethor will throw himself off the highest tower of Minas Tirith, and he will drag Faramir away to a pyre meant for the last of the Steward’s line – but this is now and Pippin likes him, this great lord of Men who gives his attention so easily to an inconsequential hobbit. He is stern, certainly – sterner than Boromir, who was quick to anger and quicker to smile when he was not brooding over the Ring – but he and his eldest son are much alike. He, too, is kind, when he has the time. He has spared the time for Pippin, these past few days. And Pippin, once, that first night, saw a glimpse of a glossy orb of shadows and starlight tucked beneath Denethor’s robes.
He thought, Is that – it could not be. No. Certainly not. Wouldn’t Gandalf know of it? Certainly he would. Come now, Pippin, you must be tired if you think the lord Denethor has one of those.
And then later, Gandalf said that Denethor knew many things that he should not have known, and his reach was far and his sight went even further, and Pippin thought, it could not be. And it was a quieter thought.
And later still, in his bed, he thought of knowing – of seeing the forces at your door, their size and strength, of watching your allies struggle and your soldiers quail. (What did you see? Gandalf asked, and Pippin said, A white tree in a stone courtyard. Burning.) Of the seeing – a reciprocal action, the Eye of Sauron gazing into you just as you gazed into the world.
He thought then, ah! How resilient he must be, how strong, to be uncowed by the Palantir’s influence when I succumbed so quickly.
He thinks, now, when Denethor asks him to sing, I am not sure if I want to be your entertainment, when Faramir is on the field.
Pippin does not think, in truth, that Denethor realized the implications: when Faramir asked, “Do you wish now that our places had been exchanged?” Denethor said, “Yes, for Boromir would have brought the Ring back to me.” He had not said, Yes, for Boromir would be alive (and you dead in his place). Perhaps Faramir heard one and not the other. Pippin had heard both: what Denethor meant and what Faramir might have heard. Denethor had been – harsh. Too harsh, quite frankly, when his only (surviving) son was now sent on what seemed a dangerous mission. To hear Gandalf tell it, it was a suicide mission. Gandalf was probably right. But Pippin watched the lines of Denethor’s face, listened to the hollowed laughter of Faramir’s soldiers, and thought that the concept was not unfamiliar in Gondor.
But to know that a great man is under a great burden is not to excuse him for his behavior, either, and that Denethor has been kind to him does not erase how he has turned, now, to something approaching callousness in his pain. Pippin does not wish to be a court jester, singing while his friends die. Faramir has been kind to him, too, in these lonely days in a strange city.
“My people have no songs for evil times,” Pippin admits, though it seems terribly rude, to say the least, to admit to such a lack. In Minas Tirith, the walls are stained and the horizon is perpetually dark. It is not like the sunlit plenty of the Shire. (Pippin thinks the people of Minas Tirith must know many songs for evil times.) He says it anyway: it is the truth and he does not know, truthfully, how to apologize for the Shire’s good fortune — to be untouched, to be prosperous, to be eastward while Gondor lies between it and Mordor — or even if he should.
“I have no songs for your halls, my lord,” Pippin adds. He means: I am a mere hobbit and you a great Lord; it seems arrogant to think my tunes might suit your ears. He means: I do not want to sing. I cannot bear to make sweetness amid such sorrow.
Denethor does not seem to hear what Pippin means.
Gandalf said, Do not lie to him, and Pippin has not. Gandalf said, He sees into men’s hearts, and Pippin thinks it true – Gandalf has been generally right about such things, in his experience.
Maybe it is not so true now.
Or perhaps the lord Denethor is sick of seeing. If Pippin had the Palantir – but he has had the Palantir, he has known the fire, he has screamed for want of relief. If Pippin had the Palantir, he would be sick of seeing, too
“Come,” the lord Denethor says. He is Pippin’s lord, now, and there is no question of obeying. “Sing me a song!”
Bilbo taught Frodo a walking-song, decades ago, when he was still young and spry and the two of them would walk the Shire together and talk of adventures. (To hear Frodo tell it, it has been a while since Bilbo has been so content.) On the road to Bree, when the Black Riders had been shadows on the wind and they’d still had time for a bit of leisure, Frodo taught it to Sam and Merry and Pippin. They sang together in the heat of day, about hearth and meat and green things. They sang about clouds and shadows passing away to fire and lamp and soft beds.
He is a hobbit. He does not know songs for such a time. He sings, "Home is behind, the world ahead.” It is haunting, lilting, it drifts in the empty spaces of the hall and fades away just as quickly. “All shall fade, all shall –”
His voice nearly breaks on the last word. It comes out soft, barely-there: fade.
He swallows. Denethor looks at him, then away.
He will remember, later, when the servants will stack wood in the House of the Dead and Denethor will put a hand to Faramir’s fevered forehead and murmur, “He is burning, already burning. The house of his spirit crumbles.”
The house of his spirit or the spirit of his house? For a moment, Pippin will not be able to parse the words.
(A long time ago, Boromir sat with him around a campfire and laughed when Pippin asked if he was a prince.
Not as such, he said. I am a Steward-prince, perhaps; my lot is of the House of Hurin and we are not royalty, though we might rule Minas Tirith.
Pippin asked, what is the difference?
Boromir looked furtively at Aragorn and said, sometimes I think it is only blood. But then he smiled, quick and fierce. My father has often said to me: you are of the Steward’s line, Boromir, not the common man; you do not have the luxury of despair. So perhaps that is the defining factor of ruling. Pippin, not quite following, looked to Strider, his ranger friend, and back to Boromir in his armor and lord’s clothing. Responsibility, Boromir said. Duty.)
A messenger will come and ask for Denethor’s commands. Denethor will laugh in his face, “Go back to your bonfire! And I? I will go now to my pyre.”
Pippin will say, “He’s still alive! Faramir is still alive! My lord, there is hope.”
And Denethor will shake his head, a silent refusal. No. There will be no hope. There has never been hope. They must have been fools, all of them, to think that there was.
In the Tower Hall in front of the Steward’s black throne, Pippin says, Do not make me sing, if not in so many words than in so many ways. Denethor says, We have lived long under the Shadow. Might we listen to a land untroubled by it, and feel that our vigil was not fruitless, though it may have been thankless?
Denethor will put Faramir on the pyre but Pippin won’t let him burn.
Later still, there will be little sound in the House of Healing, when Pippin waits at Merry’s bedside while his cousin sleeps, dreamless and comatose. He will wait, without knowing what it is that he waits for, and he will hold Merry’s hand and he will hum, softly, mouthing the words: Mist and twilight, cloud and shade, away shall fade, away shall fade.
Aragorn will come. He will crush kingsfoil in his healers’ hands and he will put a hand on Merry’s head and he will call for him by name. And Merry will wake and he will say, “I am hungry. What time is it?” but he will look at Pippin then and Pippin will know that he means, I knew you’d find me.
And Pippin will smile like a fool and say, “Past supper-time now, though I daresay I could bring you something, if they will let me.” And he will mean, I did; in the fading light and the ruin of battle and all those dead bodies, I did. He will mean, I’m going to look after you.