The Treason of Isengard (68 page)

' argued (VI.461), I think with good reason, that he stopped in fact at the end of 1939. To maintain this view it must be supposed of course that something like two years (1940 - 1) passed between the halt in Moria and the point we have now reached; but further evidence on the subject seems to be lacking.

There are two preliminary versions of 'Trotter upon Amon Hen', the first proceeding directly from the suggestions at the end of the outline just given.

Trotter sped up the hill. Every now and again he bent to the ground. Hobbits go light, and their footprints are not easy even for a ranger to pick up. [Most of the path was stony, or covered with old leaves still lying thick; but in one place a small spring crossed it, and here Trotter stooping saw tracks in the moist earth, and beyond on the stones faint traces. 'I guessed right', he said. When he came to the top he saw...](2) But not far from the top a small spring crossed the path and in the wet earth he saw what he was looking for. Quickly he ran forward across the flagstones and up the steps. 'He has been here,' he said to himself. 'Not so long ago his wet feet came this way, [and up the steps.] He climbed to the seat. I wonder what he saw?'

Trotter stood up and looked round. The sun seemed to be darkened, or else the eastern clouds were spreading. He could see nothing in that direction. As his glance swept round it stopped. Under the trees he saw orcs crawling stealthily: but how near to Amon Hen he could not guess. Then suddenly far away he saw an eagle, as he had seen it before above Sarn Ruin.(3) It was high in the air, and the land below was dim.

Slowly it circled. It was descending. Suddenly it swooped and fell out of the sky and passed below his [? view].

As Trotter gazed the vision changed. Down a long path came an old man, very bent, leaning on a staff. Grey and ragged he seemed, but when the wind tossed his cloak there came a gleam of white, as if beneath his rags he was clad in shining garments.

Then the vision faded. There was nothing more to be seen.

At the end of the text, and I think immediately, my father wrote:

'The second vision on Amon Hen is inartistic. Let Trotter be stopped by noise of orcs, and let him see nothing.'

The second version continues on into Trotter's leaping descent from the summit, his discovery of Boromir, and his words with him before he died. Though written here in the roughest fashion the text was scarcely changed afterwards, except in one respect: here (following the.

instruction at the end of the first version) Trotter does not go up to the high seat at all:

Trotter hesitated. He himself desired to [sit in the Seat of.

Seeing >] go to the high seat, but time was pressing. As he stood there his quick ears caught sounds in the woodlands below and to his left, away west of the River and camping-place. He stiffened: there were cries, and among them he feared that he could distinguish the harsh voices of orcs; faintly and desperately a horn was blowing.

In the first version the power of the Seat of Seeing upon Amon Hen

'works upon' Trotter indeed, but the visions he sees are isolated scenes, more akin in their nature perhaps to those in the water of Galadriel's Mirror than to the vast panorama of lands and war vouchsafed to Frodo. In the second draft he does not ascend to the high seat, and therefore sees nothing. In the fair copy manuscript that immediately followed he does go up, as in TT, but again sees nothing, save the eagle descending out of the sky: 'the sun seemed darkened, and the world dim and remote.' Why should this be? The utter unlikeness of the experiences of Frodo and of Aragorn in the Seat of Seeing is not explained. I have said (p. 374) that as my father first drafted the account of Frodo's vision it is explicit that it was 'the power of Amon Hen', and not the wearing of the Ring, that accorded it to him; and the first version of Aragorn's ascent to the summit shows this still more clearly (by the very fact that he also saw visions there). The final text of Frodo's vision is less explicit, and if this is associated with the fact that in the final form Aragorn does go up but sees nothing it may suggest a more complex relation between the power of Amon Hen and the power of the Ring, a relation which is not uncovered.

As I have said, the second of the original drafts for 'Trotter on Amon Hen' (4) continues to the death of Boromir, and there are a few details worth mentioning: it is not said (nor is it in the fair copy) that the glade where Boromir died was a mile or more from the camping-place (TT pp. 15, 18); Trotter says 'Thus passes the heir of Denethor, Lord of the T[ower]' ('Lord of the Tower of Guard' in the fair copy, as in TT); and very oddly, Boromir says 'Farewell, Ingold' - which can surely be no more than an unwitting reversion to the former name, instead of 'Elfstone'. In the fair copy, where he is otherwise called

'Trotter' throughout, Boromir says 'Farewell, Aragorn'; and this was probably the first time that the name 'Aragorn' was used again (apart, of course, from later correction at earlier points) after its abandon-ment.

A full and tolerably legible draft takes up just a little further on, from the coming of Legolas and Gimli to the glade, and there are only very minor differences from TT (pp. 16 - 17) as far as 'The River of Ondor will take care that no enemy dishonours his bones' (here given to Legolas). At this point in the draft manuscript there is a little hasty sketch, reproduced on p. 383, which indicates a difference (though immediately rejected) from the later story: Legolas alone returned to the camping-place. In the sketch are seen the rill that flowed through the greensward there, and the two remaining boats (the third having been taken by Frodo) moored at the water's edge, with Tol Brandir, and Amon Lhaw beyond; X marks the battle where Boromir died. At the shore is the boat brought back by Legolas, marking the place where Boromir's body was set aboard it.

In the draft text there is no mention of finding the hobbits'

'leaf-bladed' knives (cf. VI.128, FR p. 157), nor of Legolas' search for arrows among the slain; the first is absent from the fair copy also.

Then follows:

'These are not orcs of Mordor,' said Trotter. 'Some are from the Misty Mountains, if I know anything of orcs and their [gear

>] kinds; maybe they have come all the way from Moria. But what are these? Their gear is not all of goblin-make.' There were several orcs of large stature, armed with short swords, not the curved scimitars usual with goblins, and with great bows greater than their custom. Upon their shields they bore a device Trotter had not seen before: a small white hand in the centre of the black field. Upon the front of their caps was set a rune fashioned of some white metal.(5)

'S is for Sauron,' said Gimli. 'That is easy to read.'

'Nay,' said Legolas. 'Sauron does not use the Runes.'

'Neither does he use his right name or permit it to be spelt or spoken,' said Trotter. 'And he does not use white. The orcs of his immediate service bear the sign of the single eye.' He stood for a moment in thought. 'S is for Saruman, I guess,' he said at last. 'There is evil afoot at Isengard, and the West is no longer safe. What is more: I guess that some of our pursuers escaped the vigilance of Lorien or avoided that land, passing through the foothills, and that Saruman also knows now of our journey, and maybe of Gandalf's fall. Whether he is merely working under the command of Mordor, or playing some hand of his own, I cannot guess.'

'Well, we have no time to ponder riddles,' said Gimli.

With this compare the passage added to the outline on pp. 378 - 9.

- Both Legolas and Gimli now went back to the green lawn of the camping-place, which is here named Kelufain, corrected to Forfain, and that in turn to Calen-bel (all these changes being made at the moment of writing),(6) but they returned together in a single boat. Thus whereas in TT, where they brought both the remaining boats, the three companions in the one towed out the other bearing Boromir, and after passing Parth Galen cast it loose, here Legolas took the funeral boat to Calen-bel while Trotter and Gimli returned there on foot. At Calen-bel, 'All three now embarked in the remaining boat, and drew the funeral boat out into the running river.' In the fair copy the final story entered as my father wrote the text.

Apart from this, the account of Boromir's departure is almost word for word as in TT, save that his hair is called 'gold-brown' (so also in the fair copy, changed to 'long brown'; 'dark' in TT), and that it ends: But in Ondor it was long recorded in song that the elven-boat rode the falls and the foaming pit, and bore him down through Osgiliath, and past the many mouths of Anduin, and out into the Great Sea; and the voices of a thousand seabirds lamented him upon the beaches of Belfalas.

Sketch-plan of the scene of the Breaking of the Fellowship.

There is no suggestion however that any lament was sung for him by his companions; the draft reads here simply:

For a while the three companions remained gazing after him, then silently they turned and drove their boat back against the current to Calen-bel.

'Eoromir has taken his road,' said Trotter. 'Now we must swiftly determine our own course....'

The fair copy manuscript is virtually the same. The earliest extant text of the lament for Boromir (Through Rohan over fen and field, TT pp.

19 - 20) was however found with these draft papers, and a finely written text was inserted into the fair copy, with re-writing of the surrounding prose, at some later time. The earliest version is entitled

[Song >] Lament of Denethor for Boromir, and only differs in few and minor points from the form in TT;(7) of rough working there is a page bearing the most primitive sketching of phrases for the lament (including the East Wind, that blows 'past the Tower of the Moon'), and another of rough working for the North Wind (which seems to have been swiftly achieved).

It might seem, from the original title Lament of Denethor, that it was at first intended to be indeed the father's own song of grief, and not merely in form: to be brought in at a later point in the story. But against this are the first words on the page of rough working, clearly belonging to the same time: ' "They shall look out from the white tower and listen to the sea," said Trotter in a low voice.' The song is, in any case, Denethor's Lament. The occurrence of 'Trotter' here suggests that it belongs to this time, for before much more of the story was written 'Aragorn' would replace 'Trotter' as the name by which he is generally referred to. Another pointer in the same direction is a line found in the rough working: 'The North Wind blows from Calen-Bel', since in the course of the writing of the fair copy manuscript the name changes from Calen-bel to Calembel (note 6).(8) Trotter was at first less certain in his observations and conclusions when he examined the ground at Calen-bel; and he did not think to examine the baggage (nor yet in the fair copy). I cite the next part of the draft text, which here becomes very rough, in full:

'No orcs have been here,' he said at last. 'But otherwise it is not possible to say anything: all our footprints are here, and it is not possible to say whether any of the hobbits' feet have returned since the search for Frodo began. I think, but I cannot be sure, that a boat was dragged to the water at this point,' he said, pointing to the bank close to where the rill from the spring trickled into the river.

'How then do you read the riddle?' asked Gimli.

'I think that Frodo returned from the hill-top wearing the Ring,' said Trotter. 'He may have met Sam, but I think not: Frodo was probably wearing the Ring. I think Sam guessed Frodo's mind: he knew it better from love than we from wisdom; and caught him before he went.'

'But that was ill done, to go and leave us without a word, even if he had seen the orcs and was afraid,' said Gimli.(9)

'No, I think not,' said Trotter. 'I think Sam was right. He did not wish us to go to death in Mordor, and saw no other way to prevent that but by going alone and secretly. No, I think not,'

said Trotter. 'He had a Something happened on the hill to make him fly. I do not know all, but I know this. Boromir tried to take the Ring by force.'

Exclamation of horror from Legolas and Gimli.

'Think not ill of him,' said Trotter. 'He paid manfully and confessed.'

Then follows in pencil:

Don't let Trotter tell of Eoromir's misdeed?

They draw up boat. Set out west after orcs. Trotter's plan is to descend from Sarn Gebir into Rohan and try and learn of orcs and borrow horses.

Legolas sees Eagle from escarpment, descending.

They meet an old man coming up hill to meet them. Don't recognize him, though there is something familiar. Suspect he is Saruman?

The final story of the reappearance of Gandalf moves a step closer.

In the 'Plot' written before Lothlorien was reached (p. 211) it was Gimli and Legolas, on their way back North, who fell in with Gandalf, Aragorn having gone with Boromir to Minas Tirith; and Gandalf then