The War of the Ring (13 page)

3. The draft of Saruman's speech is very close to that cited from the completed manuscript, but after 'We should understand one another' Saruman says 'Building not breaking is our work.'

4. Not strictly the original draft, since as already noted it is inked over a faint and illegible pencilled text.

5. The first reference to the Five Wizards.

6. In drafting for the end of the chapter Gandalf's reply to Treebeard's 'So Saruman would not leave? I did not think he would' (TT p. 192) runs thus: 'No, he is still nursing what hope he has. He is of course pretending that he loves me and would help me (if I were reasonable - which means if I would serve him, and help him to power without [?bounds]). But he is determined to wait -

sitting among the ruins of his old plans to see what comes. In that mood, and with the Key of Orthanc and his staff he must not be allowed to escape.'

7. The need that the palantir would come to fulfil had already been felt, as is seen from Aragorn's (rejected) remarks on p. 50: 'And we should do best never to mention it [the Ring] aloud: I do not know what powers Saruman in his tower may have, nor what means of communication with the East there may be.'

8. The meeting of Treebeard with Legolas and Gimli and his parting from Merry and Pippin was very largely achieved in preliminary drafting, but was placed at a different point, since it begins: 'The afternoon was half gone and the sun going behind the western arm of the valley when Gandalf and the King returned. With them came Treebeard. Gimli and Legolas gazed at him in wonder. "Here are my companions that I have spoken of to you," said Gandalf.

The old Ent looked at them long and searchingly', &c. This was how the part of the narrative afterwards constituting 'The Voice of Saruman' originally began.

VI.

THE PALANTIR.

Drafts and outlines for the opening of this chapter show my father very uncertain of the immediate course of events when the company left Isengard. These pages are extremely difficult to interpret and to place in sequence, but I take the one that I give now to be that first written, since it treats as the actual event what would become merely the abandoned plan ('When we came, we meant to go straight from Isengard back to the king's house at Edoras over the plains', TT

p. 194).

The sun was sinking behind the long western arm of the mountains when Gandalf and his companions, and the King with his riders, set out from Isengard.

Ents in a solemn row stood like statues at the gate, with their long arms uplifted; but they made no sound. Merry and Pippin looked back as they passed down hill and turned into the road that led to the bridge.(1) Sunlight was shining in the sky, but long shadows reached out over Isengard. Treebeard stood there still, like a dark tree in the shade; the other Ents were gone, back to the sources of the stream.

By Gandalf's advice the company crossed the bridge and then struck away from the river, southward and east, making straight across the rolling plains of Rohan back to Eodoras: a journey of some forty-eight leagues.(2) They were to ride more with secrecy than speed, by dusk and night, hoping to reach the king's house by nightfall of the second day. By that time many of the king's men who had fought at the Fords and at Helm's Deep would be gathering at Eodoras.

'We have gained the first victory,' said Gandalf, 'yet that has some danger. There was a bond between Isengard and Mordor.

Of what sort and how they exchanged their news I have not discovered. But the eyes of the Dark Tower will look now in this direction, I think.

'There is no one of this company, I think, whose name (and deeds) is not noted now in the dark mind of Sauron. We should walk in shadow, if we walk abroad at all - until we are ready.

Therefore, though it may add to the miles, I counsel you go now by night, and go south so that day does not find us in the open plain. After that we may ride with many men, or ride maybe

[??back to the] Deeping Coomb that would be better by ways among the foothills of your own mountains Theoden, and come thus down to Eodoras... long ravines about Dunharrow.

The last few lines are a ragged scrawl, across which my father wrote (at the same time) 'They meet Huorns returning'. Since against the statement that 'they passed down hill and turned into the road that led to the bridge' he noted in the margin 'No they rode south to the Fords', and against 'the company crossed the bridge and then struck away from the river' he wrote 'No, they go south', it seems clear that it was as he was writing this first draft of the opening that he realised that the company did not in fact make straight for Eodoras but went first to Helm's Deep - and therefore abandoned this text.(3) In a rejected speech of Aragorn's (p. 67 note 7) there was a suggestion that he had given some thought to the matter, but there is here the first clear expression of the idea that there must have been some means by which news was rapidly exchanged between Orthanc and Barad-dur. Why Gandalf was so certain of this is not made plain,(4) and one might wonder whether the idea did not arise from the palantir rather than the other way about.

On the reverse of this page is an outline that one would naturally suppose to have been written continuously with the text on the other side. That it followed the abandoned narrative draft is obvious from the fact that here the company did not head straight for Eodoras but rode down from Isengard to the Fords. The writing is here exceptionally difficult, not only extremely rapid but with letters idiosyncratically formed.

This was the Orthan[c] Stone [written above: Orthancstone Orthankstone Orpancstan] which kept watch on movements in neighbourhood but its range was limited to some 100

leagues?(5) It will help to keep watch on Orthanc from afar.

Night comes swiftly. They come to the Fords and note the river is failing and running dry again.(6) The starry night. They cross and pass the mounds.

They halt under stars and see the great black shadow passing between [?them] and stars. Nazgul.

Gandalf takes out dark globe and looks at it. Good, he said. It shows little by night. That is a comfort. All they could see

[?was] stars and [?far away] small batlike shapes wheeling. At the edge was a river in the moon. The moon is already visible in Osgiliath said Gandalf. That seems the edge of sight.(7) As they draw near Helm's Deep a shadow comes up like a mist. Suddenly they hear a rustling whisper and on both sides of them so that they are in a lane .... Shadows pass away northward. Huorns. Insert now page 3 of Ch.XXIX.

Next day they ride with many men in the Westfold Vale and

.... by [?paths winding] among the mountains. They strike the Dunharrow ravine on the second day. And find folk streaming back to Eodoras. Aragorn rides with Eowyn.(8)

Gandalf looks at the Dark Crystal on the terrace before King's House. They see quite clearly Orthanc - Ents [?moving]

..... water all very [?small] and clear. Horsemen riding over plain from west and north. Strange [? figures of various kind].

And from Minas Tirith. It only shows lights and men [?no country].

The reference to 'page 3 of Chapter XXIX' is to the first completed version of 'The Road to Isengard', where the description of the departure of the Huorn wood from the Deeping Coomb was placed before Theoden and Gandalf and their company left for Isengard, and so before they passed through the wood (p. 27). It is clear from the passage of the Huorns at this point in the story that the final time-scheme had not yet been reached (see pp. 5 - 6, $$ III-IV): Theoden and Gandalf and their company still reached Isengard on the day (2 February) following the Battle of the Hornburg and did not spend the night of 2 February encamped below Nan Gurunir (where in TT, p. 158, they heard the Huorns passing, and after which the passage about the departure of the wood from the Deeping Coomb, and the Death Down, finally found its place).

In this outline there is nothing to suggest that the 'dark globe' was the means of communication between Orthanc and Barad-dur -

indeed, rather the reverse, since when Gandalf looks into it somewhere near the Fords of Isen the range of its sight does not extend beyond Osgiliath (although his words 'It shows little by night. That is a comfort' suggest that he had feared that it might make them visible to a hostile eye). On the other hand, in the preceding narrative draft Gandalf is seen to be much concerned with that question of communication: 'There was a bond between Isengard and Mordor. Of what sort... I have not discovered.' It seems hard to believe that even though Gandalf had not yet put two and two together my father had failed to do so. A possible explanation is that when he wrote this outline he did indeed already know the significance of the Dark Crystal, but that Gandalf had not yet fathomed the full extent of its range and powers, or did not yet know how to make use of them. Or it may be truer to say simply that in these notes we see the formative moment in which the significance of the Seeing Stone was at the point of emergence: the fateful 'device' - devised long before - which in the final story would prove to have been of vast though hidden importance in the War of the Ring.(9)

A little scribbled note in isolation may be cited here: The black-red ball shows movements. They see the lines of war advancing. [? Ships are seen] and Theoden's men in Helm's Deep and assembling in Rohan.

The context of this is altogether obscure: for who is seeing these things?

Another text - a brief and tantalising set of notes scrawled down very rapidly in faint soft pencil, vestiges of fugitive thoughts - shows further debate on the meaning of the Orthanc-stone. I cannot see any clear indication of where it would be placed in the narrative, or even of where it stands in the sequence of these preliminary papers;(10) but from various points it seems to have preceded the text that follows it here.

I said that Isengard was overthrown, and the Stone was going on a journey, said Gandalf. And that I would [look o] speak to it again later when I could, but [?at the] moment I was in a hurry.

auctor (No I think the dark globe to be in contact with Mordor is too like the rings)

Gandalf discovers that the Orthanc-stone is a far-seer. But he could not make out [how] to use it. It seemed capricious. It seems still to be looking in the directions in which it was last used, he said.

Hence, vision of the [added: 7] Nazgul above the battlements.

He was looking towards Mordor.

Can one see back. Possibly said Gandalf. It is perilous but I have a mind to use it.

He stands back. He has been seen [? bending over it].?

No, he said, this is an ancient stone set in an upper chamber of the tower long long ago before the Dark Tower was strong. It was used by the [?wardens] of Gondor. One also must have been in the Hornburg, and in Minas Tirith, and in Minas Morghul, and in Osgiliath. (Five).

They saw the Hornburg. They saw Minas Tirith. They saw Nazgul above the battlements of Osgiliath. So Saruman learned some of his news he said.

The bracketing of the words 'No I think the dark globe to be in contact with Mordor is too like the rings' and the marginal auctor (meaning that this was my father's thought, not Gandalf's) were added in ink. The implication of these words must be that Gandalf, in the opening sentences of this text, was speaking to a person in Mordor: and if that person was none other than Sauron himself, there is a delightful glimpse of Gandalf telling the Dark Lord that he was busy. - That here only five of the Seeing Stones are named (given a habitation) does not mean of course that at this stage there were only five, but that these were the five Stones of the southern kingdom (Gondor). In subsequent enumerations there were five Stones in Gondor, where in LR there were four.

Lastly, there is a brief outline, ending in a ragged scrawl, that seems to have preceded the first continuous drafting of the chapter in formed narrative.

Conversation with Saruman begins about 3.15 and ends about 4.30 (that is about sunset). Dark comes about 5.30.

Gandalf leads them south in the dark - because now they must be more secret than ever. (Wonders what the connexion was between Saruman and Sauron.)

They pass out of Nan Gurunir at about 9 p.m. Camp under shadow of the last western hill. Dolbaran. They will ride fast on morrow. Two men are sent ahead to warn men that king is returning to Helm's Deep and that a strong force should be ready to ride with him. No men more than two or three are to ride openly on the plain. The king will go by mountain paths to Dunharrow.

Then episode of Pippin and Stone.

Gandalf says this is how Saruman fell; He studied such matters. The old far-seers of the Men of Numenor who made Amon Hen and Amon Lhaw One in Hornburg, Osgiliath, Minas Tirith, Minas Morghul, Isengard [Angrenost >]