Notes: The chief references for this fic were Appendices A and B of The Lord of the Rings, which state, despite some current assumptions, that Théodred is twenty-four at the time of Théodwyn's death, while Éomer is eleven and Éowyn is seven, and that Théodwyn and Éomund did not live in Meduseld with Théoden.

An End in Gold

Her death fell like a hammer stroke. Sharp in the night, a hideous, breaking sound seemed to overtake his ears when the news came to him, breathlessly borne by the swiftest messenger. A dull, throbbing ache threatened to crumble the bones beneath his flesh—his clenched hand went immediately to the hilt of his sword as if her doom were something against which he could fight, something that could be battled and, thus, defeated.

He had foreseen it, of course. All who knew her had. Éomund's death had left her hollow, a cold and empty woman, both embittered and desolate. When, seven days after his body had been laid to rest, she had taken to her bed, he'd known she would die of it. As king he had seen enough widows of the Rohirrim suffer this fate; that it should come to his own sister seemed, though dreaded, inevitable.

At first he wanted to place blame on Éomund. As chief Marshal Théoden had loved him; as his sister's husband, he was not fully able to approve. A man so passionate as Éomund in his charge was destined for an early and brutal death, leaving behind wife and children, and Éomund had seemed to pursue this end relentlessly. It wasn't for lack of love for Théodwyn. Had this been the case Théoden would have taken her to Meduseld itself to live in his care, allowing her to keep her dignity as wife of a Marshal whilst keeping her safe from his irreverence. But she had loved him and he had requited her as dearly as he had the day they'd declared their intention to marry, and for that reason alone, no matter how Théoden feared the fate of a widow for his sister, he would not part them until death acted in his stead.

He remembered the ill color of her face at Éomund's funeral, the chill of her skin against his own. Always she had been pale, the sign of her Northern heritage, but under the grey sky it seemed the very color of winter—frigid alabaster, devoid of all vitality. A quiet sob escaped her lips as his bier was carried past her and he had taken her hand. Not the gesture of a king, he knew, but he had no use or care for titles then: he was merely Théoden, son of Thengel and Morwen of Lossarnach, and devoted brother of Théodwyn.

The children mirrored their mother's depression. Éomer, only eleven, saw his father into the ground with all the dignity of an adult man. A steady trickle of tears marked his face, but he never lost his composure. He stood with his small hands clasped before him, and it was not difficult to see in him the great Marshal his father had been, the Marshal he himself must one day become.

It was the girl who would have, had he not held such preoccupation with her mother, given him the greatest cause for concern. A slender wisp of a girl, barely seven years old, she stood with several inches separating her from her family, her face cold and bone white, dressed in the grey her mother had favored from their youth in Gondor. At her side, tied to her pale belt, hung a small sheathed dagger, one of her brother's, perhaps. Her tiny hand rested atop its hilt, clutching it absently. No doubt she'd seen her father do this often, his hands still stained with Orc blood.

For a week Théodwyn continued to mourn him publicly, allowing visitors into their house to offer their sympathy and to, in some instances bring gifts of food or of inconsequential baubles to the children. And then abruptly as Éomund's murder on the plains her door was shut and barred and the old woman who had come to care for her allowed entrance only to Théoden himself.

The house smelled of fire and death the last time he saw her alive. All the shutters were closed and locked; the hearth supplied the only light and it was before it that they had moved her, taking her from the magnificent bed she'd shared with her husband to a small hay mattress on the stone floor. Several woven blankets lay atop her quivering form; her eyes, so much darker now, as if already preparing to be blinded in death, gazed listlessly into the fire as if she expected him to return through the flames, unpierced by any foul Orc's blade.

The two children kept silent vigil over her, Éomer sharpening a little knife, Éowyn braiding together bits of hay. At his entrance the old woman had called them to her, leading them out of the room to give them privacy for the last time.

He knelt at her side, groped for her hand through the blankets. She blinked rapidly but did not look at him. "Éomund?"

"No, lady."

A weak smile broke out across her face. "Théoden." She gripped his hand and at last favored him with her eyes. "I knew you would come."

"And will come again every day if you will allow it. Your home is kept better than any fortress."

She shook her head, only vaguely amused. The gold of her hair had faded and now seemed dry and ashen. "There will not be many days left. I go to meet my husband."

A pang of remorse, of guilt, a hardened knot in the pit of his stomach. Éomund had left of his own accord, not on any appointed mission, though it was the duty of those active in service to the king to hunt down any reported enemies. For years Éomund had gone at the quietest rumor of Orcs and while Théodwyn had never had the heart to blame her brother for it, he knew that, on some level, he was responsible.

He bent down to her, kissed her forehead. "You are yet a young woman," he said gently, though her appearance seemed to invalidate his veracity. "You have many years still ahead of you."

"No." She rolled over onto her back, still glancing between him and the fire. "I could never follow him but this way." And strangely she did not seem sad, though her dark eyes glistened and her words remained soft.

He tried to believe it was only her grief that made her speak so, tried to smile against the sudden burning in his eyes. "You have your children to think of," he prompted. "Éomund's children. He would not leave them so alone."

"No. He has already left them." She said nothing more. Her eyes shone orange in the hearth light, her fair cheeks glistened. Her sadness reduced her to both an old woman and a child, the same child for whom he had cared when they were young. She had been so lovely then, the most beautiful of all his sisters, a veritable queen of Gondor and, when their father had taken the throne, of Rohan.

How strong she'd once been, and how loving. He had never been able to refuse her. When first she had told him of her love for Éomund he had been overwhelmed by dread, but the light in her eyes had convinced him to keep silent his misgivings. And years before when Elfhild had passed on in bearing their son it had been Théodwyn who brought him out of his despair, remaining by his side in Meduseld when even those highest in his court could no longer bear to see him.

He could not do the same for her. He knew no words of comfort for a woman lost as she, no reassurances that would not pale next to her tears. And so she wasted away before him, laying, desolate, on the floor until one morning she ceased to awaken, even to her own children's voices.

He did not weep when they told him, nor did he fall to his knees in mourning. He was the king and could not provide such an emasculated example for his people. But he had lost all dignity when at last he'd gone to his private chambers, driving his fist into the floor and crying her name like a talisman. If Théodred heard any of it, he later gave no sign. Though still quite a young man he knew the laws of dignity and where and when they no longer applied.

There was no question as to her destiny: she would be buried in honor by her husband, placed at his side as she had sought to live. He had no doubt that he could maintain his composure when they bore her into the ground; he had seen both his parents and two of his sisters into the earth, and he would not do the dearest of these any disservice by caterwauling like a madwoman before her grave. Only one decision remained and he would grant it not even a moment's consideration; he had made his choice the moment of her death.

"Where are her children?" he asked of the rider who bore the news to him, resisting the urge to grip his sword again.

"In the lady's house, my lord, with her attendants."

"Bring them here."

It was another hour before the rider returned. The night deepened as if in early winter, starless, impenetrable. He summoned Théodred to him and told him of his intentions; his son, ever dutiful, offered only his agreement. He thought well of his cousins, though they were but children, and would be willing, the king knew, to teach them as their parents had not been able to do.

A steady march of hooves announced their arrival. The hall was opened to them, allowing a cold wind to rustle the banners and flicker the torches. The king waited to greet them not at his throne but at the door itself; his son stood several yards off behind him so as not to intimidate them.

His heart pounded in his chest—the low sound of drums, of war. Though his eyes were dry he had scarcely had time to mourn her.

Let me do this for you, my dearest, where I have been powerless to help you before.

A figure, a mere shadow in the dark dismounted. The escort came forth, once more bowing his head toward the king as he presented a smaller shadow: his nephew, Éomer.

The boy did not hesitate. If his father's death had aged him into adolescence, his mother's had made him a man. His dry eyes looked directly into those of his uncle, unblinking, unwavering. His mouth was firm and set, frowning but not as if to weep. Indeed, he looked as though he would never weep again. Sweat and blood would mark his face henceforth, it seemed, but never tears. Théoden realized, staring down at him, that it would not be much longer until he grew into his sword.

He came forward, firm in his step as he was in expression. Théoden stretched forth his hand to him.

"My lord," the boy said, bowed low before him, leaning forward to kiss his ring.

"No." He caught his nephew by the chin, guided him to stand. "You will not be my servant here, but my son." And turning back to Théoden he said, smiling for the boy's sake. "Here, Théodred, is one who knows how to pay respect." His son laughed; the boy reluctantly smiled, and his reaction was sufficient.

He bent to kiss his nephew's forehead for the last time, saw the empty darkness behind him. "But where is your sister?" For a moment he saw stricken by the fear that she had been left behind, employed by the women who prepared Théodwyn body. It was this perhaps more than anything else that affirmed his believe that it was truly better to be a man in these dark times: he had seen his own grieving mother with her hair pinned back as she leaned over a body, weeping and cleansing simultaneously, and had ever since been grateful that such duties were not his. A man could ride into battle and stare into the eyes of death itself, but to dress a body was a dark territory into which he dared not enter.

The boy turned, beckoned to the form that stood huddled beside the horse. In a hushed voice, as if his uncle could not hear, "Éowyn, you must come when the king calls you."

She approached slowly, dressed again in her mother's favored grey. Her long hair hung loose about her cold, tearstained face.

He knelt at her feet, taking both her small hands between his own. "You have your mother's face," he said, delivering a swift kiss to her cheek. "Will you have me for a father?"

"Yes, my lord." Her eyes never met his, nor did her voice betray any emotion.

"And you will be the Lady of my house."

"If you will it, my lord." So stern her voice, stern and lifeless, as if this final death had taken her very heart.

Holding on to her hand he led her through the door, guiding her brother with her. There was nothing more he could say to them. Their mother had grown up in manner of a queen in this hall and he would accord them no less honor: he and Théodred would bring up the boy to be an even greater warrior than his father had been, and the girl, like her mother before her, would be designated a shieldmaiden, worthy of the reverence of all the Rohirrim.

The children were soon put to bed with the help of his son, and nestling against each other they fell asleep almost instantly. As Théodred closed the door on them Éomer's arms slipped about his sister, pressing her to his chest where she might weep freely if she chose. The king paused, watching them. He had slept like that with their mother countless nights, when she was sad, when she was frightened, when their mother and then their father had died. The scent of her hair, thick and warm as the horsehair that then flowed from their father's helmet, seemed a sweet perfume to him then; he had sworn on those nights never to let anything harm her, neither man or Orc or Eastern darkness.

And now he had failed her. He should have brought her and the children to Meduseld when Éomund began riding away at mere rumor of Orcs so that she might again have family other than her husband. She could not have barricaded herself alone in her room here, nor would she, he thought, have wanted to—she would have mourned him with his support, and the sickness would never have overtaken her.

"I will wait on them tonight," his son volunteered, moving as if to go in search of a chair to set outside the door.

"No. They will be in my care now."

Théodred nodded and left him there. He knew his father's guilt, Theoden suspected, though he was too dutiful a son to ever blame him openly. Everyone in Edoras should know of it. Theodwyn had been the most beautiful woman ever to grace the Mark and he had doted on her all his life, until she had most needed him. He was complicit in her death as her husband.

He settled by the door, opening it an inch in the event that the children needed him, and wept until morning.