Yours to Command

The White City

In the year 2002 of the Third Age, Minas Ithil was captured by the captain of the ring wraiths, the nazgûl, and from then on was known as Minas Morgul and became a place of fear and dread. As the shadow lengthened, Minas Arnor was renamed Minas Tirith, the Tower of Guard, for the constant vigilance against the threat of Mordor, and ever after it bore the brunt of the Enemy's hatred.

(Turgon: A brief history of Gondor)

***

Minas Tirith, May of Third Age 3020.

A jolt ran through the ship as it touched its berth and the sailors called out to the dockhands to fasten the ropes that had been thrown down. Lothíriel stayed well out of the way of the men rushing about, intent on their tasks. However, she had no intention of going down to her stuffy little cabin again. Anyway, she had been evicted from it by her maid, who was getting their things ready for disembarkation. They had been favoured with a following wind all morning and were just about to dock at the Harlond: the busy harbour that served the White City.

Filled with excitement, she grabbed the railing more tightly and took a deep breath. Gone was the tang of salt and gone were the plaintive cries of the sea gulls. Instead the air was filled with the high squeaks of the swallows that made their nests under the eaves of the houses of Minas Tirith, and the cool green smell of the river was overlaid with that of freshly mown hay. After an absence of eight years she was finally coming back to the place she loved.

Lothíriel had grown up in the most beautiful city of Gondor, in the high-vaulted and elegant halls of the palace of the Princes of Dol Amroth. Cooled by sea breezes in the summer and blessed with a temperate climate in the winter, her native city had long been acknowledged as the fairest dwelling place in the realm of Gondor. Lothíriel's room had faced west, overlooking the ever-changing waters of the Bay of Belfalas, shading from blue to green to molten gold as the day progressed. Indeed the sea longing should have been bred into her very bones. But instead the first time she had visited Minas Tirith as a small child, she had lost her heart to the White City.

The oppressive heat in the summer months and the cold winds that buffeted it the rest of the time had never bothered her. Even the ever-present threat of the Enemy had not affected her, for she had been convinced that nothing could ever defeat her splendid cousins Boromir and Faramir, who sometimes could be persuaded to give a grubby little princess a ride on their magnificent horses. Now those days were gone forever, of course, with Faramir getting ready to marry and settle down in Southern Ithilien and Boromir dying far from the home he loved. With an effort, Lothíriel banished these sad thoughts. She was determined not to let anything spoil the occasion of her return to Minas Tirith.

"Excited, little sister?"

She turned to her brother Amrothos, who had come up behind her unnoticed and nodded, too preoccupied to protest at his calling her little. The shortest of Prince Imrahil's offspring, she had long ago given up the hope for a further growth spurt and had resigned herself to being no more than middling tall, a fact about which her brothers liked to tease her. Now she reached for Amrothos's arm.

"Can we alight yet?" she asked.

"Oh, I think so," he replied. "Let's have a look if father has sent somebody to greet us. After all, we're expected."

He took her by the arm and helped her down the steep steps from the forecastle to the main deck. Here the gangway had already been deployed, but Lothíriel had to curb her impatience while they took their leave of the captain. Finally all the pleasantries had been exchanged and their good-byes said. He insisted on carefully escorting her off his ship himself, for as he pointed out, the wood of the gangway was slippery. For once she didn't mind as much as she usually would have, because she was simply too eager to set foot on land again. As it happened, she was even grateful for it, because at first the land had the alarming tendency to sway under her feet and it took her a moment to find her balance.