return

1126 the return of the king
for there were many sick of a malady that would not be
healed; and they called it the Black Shadow, for it came from
the Nazgûl. And those who were stricken with it fell slowly
into an ever deeper dream, and then passed to silence and a
deadly cold, and so died. And it seemed to the tenders of the
sick that on the Halfling and on the Lady of Rohan this
malady lay heavily. Still at whiles as the morning wore away
they would speak, murmuring in their dreams; and the
watchers listened to all that they said, hoping perhaps to learn
something that would help them to understand their hurts.
But soon they began to fall down into the darkness, and as
the sun turned west a grey shadow crept over their faces. But
Faramir burned with a fever that would not abate.
Gandalf went from one to the other full of care, and he
was told all that the watchers could hear. And so the day
passed, while the great battle outside went on with shifting
hopes and strange tidings; and still Gandalf waited and
watched and did not go forth; till at last the red sunset filled
all the sky, and the light through the windows fell on the grey
faces of the sick. Then it seemed to those who stood by that
in the glow the faces flushed softly as with health returning,
but it was only a mockery of hope.
Then an old wife, Ioreth, the eldest of the women who
served in that house, looking on the fair face of Faramir,
wept, for all the people loved him. And she said: ‘Alas! if he
should die. Would that there were kings in Gondor, as there
were once upon a time, they say! For it is said in old lore:
The hands of the king are the hands of a healer. And so the
rightful king could ever be known.’
And Gandalf, who stood by, said: ‘Men may long remember
your words, Ioreth! For there is hope in them. Maybe a
king has indeed returned to Gondor; or have you not heard
the strange tidings that have come to the City?’
‘I have been too busy with this and that to heed all the
crying and shouting,’ she answered. ‘All I hope is that those
murdering devils do not come to this House and trouble the
sick.’