1. A Bittersweet Age
Éothain
The heat of summer rolls down my back as I urge my horse into a canter, willing the wind from the motion to ease the blaze of the sun. Alongside me, Brithwyn does the same, her hair bouncing back from her shoulders, sprung loose from its haphazard plaits.
"Pity it's too hot too race," she says in a voice that somehow over the last six months of my absence has grown huskier, deeper than the girlish lilt I remember from before.
"You would lose, anyway," I retort with a grin.
"Never," she says, tossing her hair. "Someone has grown too big for his Rohirrim britches." She pulls ahead, and instead of nudging my horse to catch up, I hang back , watching her. For some reason, I am perplexed. At thirteen, three years younger to my sixteen, she seems suddenly an enigma. She is no longer quite the child I had grown up with, but neither is she a woman. Indeed, she is still clad like a child, her skirts, riding up around her knees, revealing bare legs and feet – she is riding bareback. The sight should be no different from the summers before, and yet it is – those legs, golden from months in the sun, are round and shapely. And though her tunic is loose, when she moves I catch a glimpse of two small but very present curves that certainly were never there before.
From the sight of her bare legs, I find it hard to tear my eyes away, and am disgusted with myself. She's a child. She's almost a woman. She's my friend.
"Éothain?" her voice breaks my thoughts and I realize she has slowed her grey mare – a borrowed horse - to a walk, waiting for me to catch up. "That scowl will get stuck on your face. Are you all right?"
I force a laugh. "I'm all right. Just thinking about something."
She studies me, frank as ever. "About what?" I don't answer, and she shrugs. "Fine." We ride on in silence for a while, though she glances at me curiously now and then, as if she expects me to speak. Finally, she says, "You've changed, Éothain."
It is my turn to shrug. "So have you."
"Yes," she replies. "Only perhaps not as much." She smiles a bit ruefully. "You're becoming a man."
After a moment, I nod, pleased but trying not to show it. She looks away, on to the horizon – we are coming up over a rise in the grassy hills. Beneath us, the land seems to stretch on down forever, the golden grass rippling slightly in the breeze, dappled in shadows where the light does not reach it.
"I expect you will not want to spend time with me anymore." Her voice has grown quieter than before.
I am taken aback. "What makes you say that?" Unexpectedly, my voice shakes and I feel my face turn a little red. Béma. I look down at my hands so that my hair obscures my face. Why is this suddenly so awkward?"
"Well," Brithwyn says slowly. "I've always marveled that you have thought to spend your time playing with me, when I'm a girl and – well I know how the boys have teased you all these years. But you've never treated me like a nuisance."
"You haven't been," I say. "Well, actually…" I add as an afterthought, grinning and reaching out to tug on a lock of her hair. She glares at me in mock-annoyance, then giggles. Sobering, she says,
"But the teasing – "
"That never bothered me before," I interrupt, "Why should it now?"
She sighs audibly. "I don't know. Perhaps you will come to find me an annoyance, even if you don't realize it, now that you're all grown up and are going to go do things, important things. And when you find some girl you fancy, I know you will certainly not want me in the way."
She is right, a nagging doubt starts to take root in my heart. There may not always be a place in my life for her. Although right now I feel certain that I shall never find a girl who I will be willing to let tie me down in matrimony, there will come a time when my time spent in Edoras is few and far between. Still, I shake my head. "That's – "
She cuts me off. "It's the truth. Besides, people already talk. Of you and me. My mother – " she stops and shakes her head.
"Your mother, what?" I ask, impatient. I am growing curiously angry with this conversation.
"Nothing. Never mind."
"Brithwyn, maybe you are right that people will talk but I don't care!" I say hotly. "You are my best friend and nothing can change that, not even your mother, whatever she said."
Brithwyn looks at me, and her faces changes from the carefully blank mask she had been wearing into something wild and almost beautiful with her smile, the smile she has always seemed to reserve just for me. All of a sudden I feel wistful, remembering how she had been when I had first befriended her – only seven years of age, grieving over her father's death, solemn and shy. She had been this little thing with rosy cheeks and big brown eyes that were rimmed in red and swollen from weeping. I had been wild, dishonest, and sullen at ten years old, but when I saw her, I could not bear to see her crying. Something had changed within me, and I had made it my mission to draw out her smile, then her laugh. She had begun to tag along on my adventures. We had become inseparable. And we always will be, I insist firmly to myself. Always.
Brithwyn
Sweeping my hair off my neck – it is sticking in the heat – I pull open the door to my family's little cottage. It creaks and bangs shut behind me as I slip inside, and I wince. The noise – pained and sudden and nervous – is akin to how I feel.
My mother's voice breaks the quiet from the other room – there are just two. "Brithwyn?"
Horse lords. I wince again. I had thought she had been sleeping, for she is not well and often sleeps during the heat of the day - but I suppose that the noise of my thoughtless entrance woke her.
"Yes, Mama, it's me."
After a moment, she hobbles into the room. "Dear one, what have you been up to?" she says, peering at me.
I sigh, not wanting to admit to where I have been. "Oh, just about."
"Where is your sister?"
"In the garden," I say. Isemay is supposed to be weeding and watering the vegetables, but when I walked by she was making a structure out of mud and sticking twigs in it to make it look like a castle-fortress. My baby sister is but seven years old, born just before my father's death. Away in battle at her birth, and dying before he made it home, he never knew her.
I look around. The room is in shadows and there is little air here and suddenly I cannot breathe. I go to the window, saying, "Mama, let's get some light and air in this house. You will feel much better. I don't know why you insist on shutting the house up like a coffin." I push open the shutters, and light floods the room. There is a slight breeze, and immediately I feel a bit calmer. I lean on the windowsill. "Better."
The feeling does not last. My mother is taking in my appearance – windblown, bedraggled, sweaty, and bare-legged – and even on her tired face, the disapproval shows. I bristle. "Mama, what?" I say, exasperated, even though I think I know exactly what it is she is going to say.
"Dear one, where have you been in such a state?" she says, her hands on her hips. Now, standing upright, she is a hint of the mother I remember from before my father's death – composed and serene even in high temper, loving but firm and able to make me shake when she wanted to. That woman has nearly gone, except in moments like this.
I sigh, squirming underneath her assessing gaze. "I was riding."
"With Éothain?"
I nod. "Yes - why?"
She heaves a sigh and comes to stand by me. Her face creases with worry now. "My darling, you must listen to me. You are no longer a child and you cannot play with Éothain as you used to – people will talk. And dressed like that – you are no longer a little girl and must not run around baring your limbs to the world. Do you see how that might complicate things?"
"Mama, yes – you've said all this before," I retort, "But it doesn't matter."
"Do you plan to marry him?"
"He is my friend, Mama. And even if that were grounds for marriage, which it is not, he is hardly home and never will be. He's leaving again in a few days! He is not a husband for anyone. And for that matter, I am no one's wife. I am not old enough for that."
"I was fifteen when I married your father," Mama says. "Seventeen when I had you. You are almost fourteen and you have had your monthly bleeding. You are old enough to marry."
I let out an impatient huff. "Mama, Éothain is my dearest friend, and is it not right that I should allow myself the simple pleasure to go out and ride every now and then like we used to?"
Mama rubs her temples and goes to sit at the table. She looks harried and defeated again. "It is my fault, I suppose. I let you run wild when you were younger – I should have put a stop to it long ago, before it even truly started."
"Mama!" I protest, appalled.
"Bu I couldn't bring myself to. I thought – I saw how he helped you, made you laugh after your father – " she breaks off, and there are tears in her eyes, I notice. Again – still, after seven years, she can barely speak of it. Her shoulders are starting to shake, and I can't bear it. I go to her, kneel down and place my head on her lap.
"Mama, please don't cry," I murmur, "Don't."
She sniffs. "If your father was alive – it would be different for you and your sister."
"I know, Mama, you try very hard," I whisper. My throat is dry and tight. "Please don't do this right now."
"But as it is – I need you to stay home and help me around the house, help me with the weaving and the garden, take care of your sister. I can't do it on my own, I can't – I've tried so hard, but I can't – "
"I know, Mama, I know," I say, wanting to cry now too. I believe she does this unconsciously, but I cannot help feeling manipulated each time. But I cannot get rid of the guilt welling up inside me. "I will help you more, I mean to – I just get so crazy being cooped up here all the time, and so lonely." I bite the inside of my cheek to keep from crying and raise my head to look at her.
Her eyes clear and she smiles a watery smile of pity and love and worry. She places her hand on my cheek and strokes it. "I know, my darling, I know. If your father were here – if we had someone to provide for us, if – "
"If, if, if!" I snap, jumping to my feet, so suddenly fed up with this conversation, this pathetic side of my mother. "I am sick to death of 'if'! Mama, things are how they are, and saying otherwise will not help rationalize them or change them!" I am livid. "And that goes for Éothain as well – he is the only thing that is good and pure and constant in my life, and I will not let that go! I won't! Sauron take your ifs!"
She looks as if she has been slapped. I cannot bear to see her anymore or be in this room, and I run out of the house, letting the door slam shut in an exemplification of all the emotion locked within me that I cannot find the means to express. My mother is right in much of what she says but she is also so very, very wrong.
One look at my face and Éothain knows something is amiss. He reads me so well. "Your mother?"
I sigh and look intently at my hands. "Yes." I have come to the stables, hoping to find solace. Instead, I have found Éothain, the very crux of my problems, but at the same time the only person I can talk to. It seems I cannot escape him. Perhaps I had known in my heart I would find him here, even hoped to do so.
"She is still not well?" he asks
"She sleeps, she barely eats, she shuts herself up in the house, barely even working, and then she has the nerve to berate me when I take a moment for myself…" my voice trails off and I shrug helplessly. I cannot find the words to describe my mother's condition, and neither can I bring myself to tell him what she has said about him. About us. What he might suspect is enough.
He bows his head and I realize again how he really has changed. This Éothain is slower to smile, although when he does he is still a boy. He leans his elbow against the wall. "I am sorry."
This starts me nearly to tears and I sniff furiously, trying to keep them at bay. His pity hurts too much. I do not want it. I want… what? What do I want?
I am crying now, and he pulls me into his arms without a word. "Hush," his voice strokes my ear. "I know."
I am suddenly aware of how strong his arms are, the muscles of his chest. The scent of him, too, is overpowering – pleasant, but overwhelming my senses. Still, I feel safer here than I have in years. But why am I suddenly noticing him?
"I know how hard it has been to take care of a mother and a sister your entire life," he says. "But you've been so strong about it from the beginning." He draws back to look at me, wiping a tear from my cheek with his thumb. I shudder out a breath.
"What else can I do?" I smile weakly. "I want so much more but there is nothing there for me to take hold of."
"I know," he sighs, and breaks away from me. I feel more alone than ever, watching him as he draws a circle in the sawdust with his foot then scuffs it out again. "If you were a man you could leave Edoras like I am going to. You could ride with the Rohirrim."
"And go to war?" I ask bitterly. "I have no desire to fight. I want… I do not know what I want. But I know that I do not want to experience hate or violence or destruction. I do not need any more death in my life. I live with it each day." I am crying again and I turn away, suddenly ashamed of my tears. He will never understand, this boy-man with his gold-red hair falling out of its braids to dance against his broadening shoulders. He might offer me one of those muscled shoulders to cry on, but he will never be able to offer me an escape from the life I lead. And inexplicably, I hate him for that, although he has done nothing wrong.
Éothain
She came to me for comfort and she is pushing me away. I do not understand. What is this rift? Why will she not let me help her?
Her thin shoulders are shaking. I am helpless to do anything, and so I stand here like a fool, my hands awkwardly hanging. Finally, her tears subside – or rather, she pushes them inside her, shuts them away. When she turns to look at me, her expression is pinched and white and utterly void of emotion. Even her hands are still, held like they are made of iron rods. I have never seen such a sight.
I reach out to her as if to touch her. "Brithwyn – "
But she shakes her head. "Hush. I must go mind my sister and help Mama with supper." She starts to go, but I step in front of her path.
"Wait," I say, not really knowing what I want her to hear from me.
She tries to brush by me, but I am quicker. "Brithwyn, I am going away again after tomorrow. I will not be back for many months, maybe years. I do not want to carry with me the memory of you so very unhappy."
"Then don't," she snaps, then softens when she sees the effect of her words. "I'm sorry, Éothain."
"Is there anything at all that I can do?" I ask. "While I am here, before I go."
She shakes her head and looks at our feet in the dust. Hers are bare, tanned and dirty. Mine are in new leather boots, a gift from my father in honor of my coming training. I was so proud of them. He had sacrificed wages to pay for them, but the fact that we could even think to afford such luxuries shames me. I feel like crying, and am ashamed that I would fall prey to such weak feelings in front of her.
"Would you just think of me, every now and then, Éothain?" she asks finally. "I will do the same for you, you know I will."
I swallow a lump in my throat and nod. "Yes," my voice cracks a bit and I hang my head in embarrassment. She looks at me solemnly.
"I must go," she says softly and my heart breaks at her words. "I will say goodbye to you before you leave."
"We depart at first light, day after tomorrow," I say, and she nods, and leaves without another word.
Brithwyn
The sun is rising, extending its pale tendrils over the horizon and into my eyes. I am huddled in my cloak even inside at the window, for the morning is chilly and my soul feels colder, more alone. I know that as I sit, unable to move, Éothain is preparing to travel. I see him in my mind's eye, buckling the girth on his horse's saddle, checking its security, scanning his belongings to make sure he has everything. He is precise, studied, analytical about these things. I can picture the way his jaw juts out in concentration, the exact furrow of his brow, the carefulness of his hands. His eyes must be clouded with sleep's remaining grip.
He will be expecting me. I told him I would be there to see him off. But I cannot bring myself to go to him, though I have risen at dawn with the intention of doing so. I want to see him, touch him once in parting. But I do not want to see him leave. I want him to stay. I want so many things.
Éothain
We are preparing to move. My eyes scan my surroundings, looking for her, growing increasingly concerned when she does not appear. She said she would be here! She promised!
She did not promise in so many words. But she did say she would come.
Someone speaks to me and I turn my attention to the voice briefly. "What? Yes." I do not really know what they ask. A lump of cheese and bread meets my palm, followed by an apple in the other. I tuck the meal away for later and return to my task of looking, watching, waiting.
Then I see her. She is standing on the crest of the hill above us, a small solemn shape against the sky. I lift my arm to wave, to beckon her to come down, but she shakes her head. I look away, unwilling to let her or the others see my disappointment. I try to make my expression blank. But I can't. I look back up at her and call her name.
"Brithwyn."
She lifts her hand to wave, the briefest smile flitting across her face – I can barely see it in the distance. Then she turns and disappears over the top of the hill. Gone. Gone.