Sisters of Mercy
"Wisest of the Maiar was Olórin… His ways took him often to the house of Nienna, and of her he learned pity and patience." Valaquenta
"Oh the sisters of mercy, they are not departed or gone." Leonard Cohen
The Houses of Healing, March 3019 T.A.
Éomer came and sat beside her. She kept her eyes shut and feigned sleep. After a while she heard him weeping. She thought, I could open my eyes now, comfort him… But she was too weary for this task – yet again, this task of comforting her menfolk – and at length he went away. Not long after, sleep came in earnest. There was nothing else to do.
She woke to dusk. In the chair by the bed sat the wizard, smoking and watching. She let him help her sit. There was a difference in kind, she thought, between the grey-cloaked old man she had met before and this warrior in white. He was franker, blunter, fiercer; he did not have time to waste. She preferred this one – and yet, when she looked into the depths of his eyes, she glimpsed the ragged old wanderer. The same sharp and knowing glance; the same deep well of pity. She turned her face away. She did not want to be pitied. She did not want anything at all.
He talked a little then, about her valour and her victory. All, it seemed, was to be forgiven. She supposed she should be grateful. Before he left, he came to kiss her brow. She caught the scent of pipeweed. His eyes, barely veiled, were glowing, and she had to look away. "Look beyond your sorrows, Éowyn," he said. "Do not forge yourself a prison of your own making."
Such pity, she thought, as she lay against her pillows. He wields it like a weapon. Yet when Éomer came again, she kept her eyes open. He cried over her. She let him hold her cold hand and she even let him kiss her. In another time, she might have prayed for his safe return, but what was the use? They were long past the point of any return, and the Powers, it seemed, were deaf to men's prayers, long gone from the circles of the world.
The men were gone. When the women came in to care for her – to wash her and help her eat, to bring bandages and remedies – she would ask them for news. One of them laughed, not unkindly. "Oh, my love," she said. "We're the last to hear the news."
On the second day after the men had left, weary of her confinement, she rose from bed and went to the door, calling for one of the women to come and help her. Two of them came, and she insisted on dressing and speaking to the Warden. There was some delay while they found suitable clothes, and then she sat while they brushed her hair and gossiped over her head.
Later that evening, she sat in the new room that had been arranged for her. The curtains were closed. One of the women – Faelas, she thought her name was – came to ready her for bed. "I hear you met our Steward," she said.
Éowyn wondered: What is she expecting? That I shall share my impressions or tell a tale or two? "Yes."
"Poor soul."
Éowyn had no answer to this.
"Be kind to him, my lady," said the woman. "He's had a hard time—"
"We all have had a hard time," Éowyn said. The other, mercifully, went quiet and, at last, was gone.
Éowyn lay on the bed. She had a sudden memory of her uncle, voice truculent and thin as she tried to soothe him. She saw herself briefly through the other woman's eyes. She thought, I am not the easiest of patients.
The following afternoon, she retreated from the garden and the Steward's observations. Back in her room, she stood by the window, looking eastwards. Why? Why bother?
There was a tap at the door. Master Meriadoc entered. "Ah!" he said. "Here you are!" He hurried over to embrace her. They sat in the chairs by the window, and he offered his gift: wizened little apples, two apiece.
"You have taken some finding," he remonstrated, a twinkle in his eyes. "A new room! What was the cause of this?"
"I asked for a different view," she said. "And I received it – by the grace of the Steward."
"Oh yes." Merry frowned and bit into his apple. "Poor man."
They all, it seemed, had his welfare at heart. Well, she thought, I might as well hear the tale as not. So she asked Meriadoc to tell her, and he did. The whole of it – the brother, the father, the fire. She sat for a while after he had finished, and ate her apples. The woman Faelas came in, bearing blankets, and fussed around Merry. He chatted back, gaily; he seemed quite the favourite, and the room was briefly full of laughter. Out of nowhere, she summoned up bread and honey for him – and through him for her.
They fell to eating and talking. At length, inevitably, their speech turned to her uncle, lying under cloth of gold in the Citadel. All of a sudden, the Halfling began to weep.
Swiftly, she rose from her chair and knelt before him. "Hush," she said, softly. "I know," she said, lifting her cold arm to hold him.
She could not sleep. Unable to bear the walls any longer, she got out of bed, and, taking a candle with her, went outside.
The night was chill and moonless. She walked the length of the lawn. Behind a hedge there was a small garden, which she thought she might as well explore. But entering, she saw she was not alone.
Sitting on a bench, his eyes closed and his head back, was the Steward. There were silver trails upon his cheeks. She held her breath and began to withdraw. He must not have many private moments. But she was not quite quiet enough, and his eyes fluttered open.
They stared at each other for a while. He looked tired and sad. She had no idea how she must look.
"Hello," he said.
"I am sorry. I did not mean to disturb your peace."
"You haven't." He patted the seat beside him and, since she could not think of an excuse and had no real wish to be rude, she was forced to join him.
"Could you not sleep either?" he said.
"So it seems."
"I thought I would try without the sleeping draught." She watched him suppress a shiver. "And here you find me."
They sat in silence, a careful inch or two apart. After a while he cleared his throat and began to talk. He did like to talk, she had noticed.
"This part of the garden," he said, "has been planted with white flowers. In summer, on moonlit nights, when they are in bloom, the whole place glimmers." He looked up at the sky, bereft of light. "Of course, there is no moon tonight…"
And there would be no summer.
"Well," he said, as if marshalling his thoughts. "A garden like this is sacred to Nienna, the power that moves us to pity, that teaches us endurance, how to bear suffering and turn it into wisdom." His words lacked their usual fluency; he spoke as if reciting some childhood lesson, dredged up from memory and not from the heart.
"I am not sure," she said, "that suffering is worth the lesson."
He fell silent. "Forgive me," he said, at length. "I am rambling. I can be quiet if you prefer."
What had Faelas said? Be kind to him, my lady.
She closed her eyes. She wanted him to go, to leave her alone in the cold and the dark. She said, "Tell me more about Nienna."
He sighed, as if summoning strength for yet another task that had come his way. "She lives alone, west of West, and the windows of her house look beyond the walls of the world. Her Song is one of lamentation. She mourns for every hurt that the world has suffered, but her sorrow has taught her pity, and patience." He stopped. He put his hands upon his knees and leaned forwards, as if some weight had pressed against his back. "There are statues of her, veiled and distant. Marbled. All you can see are her eyes…"
She shivered. "She sounds cold. Possessed by death."
"Aye. I have thought so too…" Suddenly, he put his head in his hands. "Mithrandir came to speak to me before he left," he said. "We spoke… Well. We spoke about many things. After he left I slept, and I saw…"
"What?" she said, despite herself. "What did you see?"
The wind shifted. She caught the sweet fragrance of night-scented herbs.
"She was not like those images," he said. "Her face was uncovered. Her hand upon her heart. Her hair was long and white, but she was not old. Eyes grey as the sea. Tears, of course – there are always tears. She did not look at me, Éowyn. She looked past me. She saw…. The lament of ages, I would say. Grief piled upon grief. A world forever marred beyond healing. Yet she was kind, full of pity, and resolute, as if to say, 'This too can be borne…'" He wiped a hand across his face. "Pity," he said. "In the end, that is all we have to give each other, no? All that we can hope for. Pity and mercy."
Gently, she reached out, putting her hand upon him. After a moment, he leaned back next to her. Arm to arm; hurt to hurt.
"Do you dream, Éowyn?" he said.
She felt the terror grip her. She felt the walls closing in. She felt as cold as ever. "Yes," she said. "Of course." She touched his hand. "Tomorrow you should take the sleeping draught."
"Tomorrow I will," he said.
They both fell silent. She stared at the eastern sky. There was a gleam of light there, but the day would be cold and grey, the sun veiled. Behind them, in the house, the women were rising. She opened her mouth to speak, but saw he had fallen asleep. She moved closer to him and waited for dawn.
Grateful thanks to the Ladies of the Garden of Ithilien for coaxing this story out of obscurity.
Altariel, 15-17 September 2018